Siberian Lakes

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

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

Highly visible in their red shirts, SWOT project team members - including Project Manager Parag Vaze at left - interact with the public during the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) "Open House" ...

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.

A Flooded Forest in the Amazon

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

Alaska lakes.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

Arctic Lakes

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

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...

The first 90 days of the SWOT science mission will be flown in a "fast-sampling" phase that revisits specific areas once per day. This phase will begin after a 90-day commissioning phase for engine...