Some of the people who helped to 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 March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, on June 27, 2021, and is headed to France. Once the SWOT research hardware arrives at a clean room facility near Cannes, France, engineers and technicians will complete assembly of the satellite over the next year. SWOT will make global surveys of Earth's surface water. By measuring its height, researchers can track the volume and location of the finite resource around the world. The data will help with monitoring changes in floodplains and wetlands, measure how much fresh water flows into and out of lakes and rivers and back to the ocean, and track regional shifts in sea level. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24535