Ocean Survey
Spacecraft Arrives At Launch Site
(30 April 2008) A NASA and French
Space Agency (CNES) spacecraft designed to continue a long-term survey of
Earth's oceans has arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., for final
launch preparations.
The new satellite will study ocean
circulation and the effect oceans have on weather, climate and how Earth is
responding to global climate change.
The Ocean Surface Topography
Mission, called OSTM for short, will be flown on the Jason-2 spacecraft, which
was transported on April 24 from its manufacturer, Thales Alenia Space, in
Cannes, France, to Toulouse, France. It was loaded onto a Boeing 747 aircraft
for its trans-Atlantic journey and after refuelling in Boston, it arrived April
29 at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Following final tests, it will be integrated
onto a United Launch Alliance Delta II launch vehicle in preparation for a
planned launch in June.
With the launch of this satellite, the science
of precisely measuring and studying the height of the sea surface across
Earth's oceans will come of age. Continuous collection of these measurements
began in 1992 with the NASA/CNES Topex/Poseidon mission and continued in 2001
with NASA/CNES's Jason-1 mission, which is currently providing near-real-time
data to a variety of users. The addition of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Organization for the
Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) as partners on
OSTM/Jason-2 begins transitioning the responsibility for collecting these data
to weather and climate forecasting agencies, which will use them for
short-range and seasonal-to-long-range ocean forecasting.
The 15-plus-year
climate data record that this mission will continue is the only one capable of
addressing how ocean circulation is linked to climate change and how global sea
level, one of the most important consequences and indicators of global climate
change, is changing.
Satellite observations of Earth's oceans have
revolutionised our understanding of global climate by improving ocean models
and hurricane forecasts, and identifying and tracking large ocean/atmosphere
phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña. The data are used every
day in applications as diverse as, for example, routing ships, improving the
safety and efficiency of offshore industry operations, managing fisheries and
tracking marine mammals.
The spacecraft will be launched into a
1,336-kilometre (830-mile) circular, non-sun-synchronous orbit at an
inclination of 66 degrees to Earth's equator, allowing it to monitor 95 percent
of Earth's ice-free oceans every 10 days.
The Ocean Surface Topography
Mission/Jason-2 is an international and interagency mission developed and
operated as a four-party collaboration among NASA; NOAA; the French Space
Agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales; and EUMETSAT. CNES is providing the
spacecraft, NASA and CNES are jointly providing the payload instruments and
NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center is responsible for
the launch management and countdown operations for the Delta II. After
completing the on-orbit commissioning of the spacecraft, CNES will hand over
operation and control of the spacecraft to NOAA. NOAA and EUMETSAT will
generate the near-real-time products and distribute them to users. NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the mission for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is managed for NASA by the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
(source: NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory)
