NASA's Blue Marble

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

Teams from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, loaded the scientific payload for the SWOT Earth-observing satelli...

A Flooded Forest in the Amazon

Floodplain Channel in the Amazon

SWOT's nominal coverage during its 3-year science orbit will include measurements between 78°N and 78°S collected over a period of 21 days. Maps show the coverage after 3 days (left) and the full 2...

A view of SWOT from inside a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft, as it was being loaded en route to Thales Alenia Space near Cannes, France.

SWOT is being jointly developed by NASA and Centre National D’Études Spatiales (CNES).

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

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 ...

The SWOT satellite observatory is being jointly built by NASA and Centre National D’Études Spatiales (CNES).

Arctic

Lake Calado, Amazon

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.

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

An artist’s concept of the SWOT spacecraft (January 2012).

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

The Canadian Space Agency will contribute to the SWOT Mission by providing a high-power assembly component for SWOT’s Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn).

Soccer Nets on a levee in the Amazon

A photograph of the Varzea Forest area of Brazil (3 of 4).

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

An artist’s concept of the SWOT spacecraft (March 2012).

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...

AirSWOT plays a key role in SWOT mission development. It allows scientists to study interferometric data before launch and thus be prepared to effectively interpret SWOT data after launch.

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.  

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