Arctic

SWOT Applications Lead, Margaret Srinivasan, helps young visitors match data user types - from coastal safety officers to farmers - with pictures representing SWOT applications.

A photograph of the Varzea Forest area of Brazil (1 of 4).

The SWOT Payload module consists of two primary components: the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) and the Nadir module.

The U.K. Space Agency will provide a part of the radar payload for SWOT.

A banner explaining the purpose of the SWOT mission, created and displayed during testing.

AirSWOT is using parts of Saskatchewan as a testing ground for mapping water levels.

SWOT technologies - advanced wide-swath technology, ocean and surface water topography measurements, and high-resolution products - will support such societal needs as dams, shipping, and surface w...

An early rendering of the SWOT spacecraft (February 2011).

An alternate logo for the Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission.

SWOT leaving NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, en route to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California. Once the scientific payload arrived, it was sent to a Thale...

A diagram illustrating the swaths of data that SWOT will collect. 

Soccer Nets on a levee in the Amazon

SWOT will collect data across a 75-mile (120-kilometer) wide swath, with a gap in the center for an altimetry track. This animation shows the collection of data over the state of Florida, which is ...

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

NASA’s Blue Marble

Engineers integrate separate parts of the SWOT satellite into one in a Thales Alenia Space clean room facility in Cannes, France.

SWOT will provide NASA’s first global survey of Earth’s surface water.

Part of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite's science instrument payload sits in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory during assembly.  

A Flooded Forest in the Amazon

An image of the original concept for the Water and Terrestrial Elevation Recovery (WATER) Mission, which later became SWOT.

Arctic Lakes

Mounted above the Payload Module, the Spacecraft Bus is a multi-purpose platform housing many of the electronics required for the observatory to function, including components for power, propulsion...

An artist’s concept of the SWOT spacecraft (February 2015).

This collaborative mission poster, designed by CNES (French Space Agency), shows the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite soaring over an abstract of a water molecule.

NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for SWOT.