Siberian Lakes

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.

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

Alaska lakes.

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 photograph of the Amazon River Delta, captured by Landsat in 2006.

Disappearing lakes in Barrow, Alaska.

Lake Calado, Amazon

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...

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

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).

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

This SWOT "Bannerbug" exhibit was created for display during hardware tests conducted during an eleven-day period in October 2008.

Amazon Fishermen

Pictured are team members who helped load the hardware for the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite's research instruments onto a C-17 airplane pose for a picture. The payload left M...

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Open House visitors are delighted to see how well their color-coded stickers match the "sea surface topography" model of the Gulf Stream within a wooden box.

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.

Canada is home to more than 30,000 lakes including these water bodies in Northern Alberta. The abundance of surface freshwater in Canada makes it a prime target for AirSWOT investigations.

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

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

Arctic

Crowds flock to the Earth Sciences exhibits during the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) "Open House" event, giving volunteers (red shirts) a chance to share information about their various miss...

A photograph of the Varzea Forest area of Brazil (2 of 4).

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

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

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