SWOT Encapsulation

Inside the SpaceX facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the first half of the SpaceX Falcon 9 payload fairing is moved around the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite on Dec. 8, 2022. To mark the milestone, the processing team gathers in front of the SWOT satellite. A collaboration between NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency and the UK Space Agency, SWOT will be the first satellite to survey nearly all water on Earth’s surface. SWOT is scheduled to lift off aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg on Dec. 15, 2022, at 3:46 a.m. PST.