Jason-3 is a

satellite altimeter Satellite geodesy is geodesy by means of artificial satellites—the measurement of the form and dimensions of Earth, the location of objects on its surface and the figure of the Earth's gravity field by means of artificial satellite techniques. ...

created by a partnership of the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and National Aeronautic and Space Administration (

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

), and is an international cooperative mission in which

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with Weather forecasting, forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, Hydrography, charting the seas, ...

(NOAA) is partnering with the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

, French space agency). The satellite's mission is to supply data for scientific, commercial, and practical applications to

sea level rise The sea level has been rising from the end of the last ice age, which was around 20,000 years ago. Between 1901 and 2018, the average sea level rose by , with an increase of per year since the 1970s. This was faster than the sea level had e ...

sea surface temperature Sea surface temperature (or ocean surface temperature) is the ocean temperature, temperature of ocean water close to the surface. The exact meaning of ''surface'' varies in the literature and in practice. It is usually between and below the sea ...

, ocean temperature circulation, and

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

Mission objectives

Jason-3 makes precise measurements related to global sea-surface height. Because sea surface height is measured via

altimetry An altimeter or an altitude meter is an instrument used to measure the altitude of an object above a fixed level. The measurement of altitude is called altimetry, which is related to the term bathymetry, the measurement of depth under water. T ...

, mesoscale ocean features are better simulated since the Jason-3 radar altimeter can measure global sea-level variations with very high accuracy. The scientific goal is to produce global sea-surface height measurements every 10 days to an accuracy of less than 4 cm. In order to calibrate the radar altimeter, a microwave radiometer measures signal delay caused by atmospheric vapors, ultimately correcting the altimeter's accuracy to 3.3 cm. This data is important to collect and analyze because it is a critical factor in understanding the changes in Earth's climate brought on by

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

as well as

ocean circulation An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of seawater generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, ...

. NOAA's National Weather Service uses Jason-3's data to more accurately forecast

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

Scientific applications

The primary users of Jason-3 data are people who are dependent on marine and weather forecasts for public safety, commerce and environmental purposes. Other users include scientists and people who are concerned with global warming and its relation to the ocean.

(NOAA) and European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) are using the data primarily for monitoring wind and waves on the

high seas The terms international waters or transboundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water (or their drainage basins) transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regiona ...

, hurricane intensity, ocean surface currents,

El Niño EL, El or el may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities * El, a character from the manga series ''Shugo Chara!'' by Peach-Pit * Eleven (''Stranger Things'') (El), a fictional character in the TV series ''Stranger Things'' * El, fami ...

and

La Niña LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *La (musical note), or A, the sixth note *"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smit ...

forecasts, water levels of lakes and rivers. Jason-3 also reports on environmental issues such as algae blooms and oil spills.

and

are more interested in the research aspect, in terms of understanding and planning for climate change. Jason-3 can measure climate change via sea surface height because sea surface rise, averaged over annual time scales, is accelerated by warming global temperatures. Ultimately, the benefits of Jason-3 data will transfer to people and to the economy.

Orbit

Jason-3 flies at the same 9.9-day repeat track orbit and this means the satellite will make observations over the same ocean point every 9.9 days. The orbital parameters are: 66.05º

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

, 1,380 km apogee, 1,328 km

perigee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

, 112 minutes per revolution around

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. It was set to fly 1 minute behind the now decommissioned Jason-2. The 1-minute time delay was applied in order to not miss any data collection between missions.

Orbit determination instruments

In order to detect sea level change, we need to know the orbit height of the satellites as they revolve around Earth, to within . Combining instruments from three different techniques— GPS, DORIS, LRA. The GPS receiver on Jason-3 uses data from the constellation of GPS satellites in orbit to constantly determine its position in orbit. Similarly, DORIS is another system to help determine orbit positioning. Designed by CNES in France, DORIS uses the Doppler effect to found its system, which describes the differences in frequencies of waves between source and object. Thirdly, LRA (Laser Retroreflector Array), which is an instance of

satellite laser ranging Satellite laser ranging (SLR) is a method to measure the distance to satellites in a geocentric orbit. It consists of an astronomical observatory equipped with a laser that sends ultrashort pulses of light. The pulses hit the satellite and boun ...

(SLR), uses corner reflectors on board the satellite to track the time it takes for lasers shot from Earth to reach the satellite and be reflected back, which can then be analyzed to understand the orbital positioning of Jason-3 from ground tracking stations. These three techniques (GPS, DORIS, LRA) all aid in determining orbit height and positioning.

Launch

Appearing on the SpaceX manifest as early as July 2013, Jason-3 was originally scheduled for launch on 22 July 2015. However, this date was pushed back to 19 August 2015 following the discovery of contamination in one of the satellite's thrusters, requiring the thruster to be replaced and further inspected. The launch was further delayed by several months due to the loss of a

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. The first Falcon 9 launch was on June 4, 2010, an ...

rocket with the CRS-7 mission on 28 June 2015. After SpaceX conducted their return-to-flight mission in December 2015 with the upgraded

Falcon 9 Full Thrust Falcon 9 Full Thrust (also known as Falcon 9 v1.2) is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle when reused and Heavy-lift launch vehicle when expended designed an ...

, Jason-3 was assigned to the final previous-generation Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket, although some parts of the rocket body had been reworked following the findings of the failure investigation. A 7-second static fire test of the rocket was completed on 11 January 2016. The Launch Readiness Review was signed off by all parties on 15 January 2016, and the launch proceeded successfully on 17 January 2016, at 18:42 UTC. The Jason-3 payload was deployed into its target orbit at altitude after an orbital insertion burn about 56 minutes into the flight. It was the 21st Falcon 9 flight overall and the second into a high-inclination orbit from

Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida * Vandenberg S ...

Space Launch Complex 4E in California.

Post-mission landing test

Following paperwork filed with US regulatory authorities in 2015, SpaceX confirmed in January 2016 that they would attempt a controlled-descent flight test and vertical landing of the rocket's first stage on their west-coast floating platform ''Just Read the Instructions'', located about out in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. This attempt followed the first successful landing and booster recovery on the previous launch in December 2015. The controlled descent through the atmosphere and landing attempt for each booster is an arrangement that is not used on other orbital

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

s. Approximately nine minutes into the flight, the live video feed from the drone ship went down due to the losing its lock on the uplink satellite.

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

later reported that the first stage did touch down smoothly on the ship, but a lockout on one of the four landing legs failed to latch, so that the booster fell over and was destroyed. Debris from the fire, including several rocket engines attached to the octaweb assembly, arrived back to shore on board the floating landing platform on 18 January 2016.

References

External links

About the satellite

Jason-3 website
by NASA JPL
Jason-3 website
by NASA JPL's Ocean Surface Topography program
Jason-3 website
by

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploratio ...

Jason-3 website
by

Jason-3 website
by EUMETSAT
Jason-3 website
by ESA's eoPortal

About the flight

Jason-3 press kit
by SpaceX {{Orbital launches in 2016 NASA satellites orbiting Earth Satellites of France Earth observation satellites Satellites orbiting Earth Spacecraft launched in 2016 SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA Physical oceanography Jason satellite series CNES