Announcement from the Jason-1 Project (on 23
April):
The Jason-1 project teams at CNES and NASA/JPL have now completed all
prerequisite tasks required to enable a safe recovery of the mission from the
safe hold it has been in since 3 March 2012. This morning, on Monday,
23 April, CNES began to command the satellite into a nadir orientation
and will then begin the restart of payload instruments on Tuesday, 24
April. CNES and NASA management, through the Joint Steering Group, have
directed the Jason-1 Project to then begin a series of maneuvers to
reduce the orbit semi-major axis by 12.6 km. This will place
Jason-1 into a new long-repeat orbit at roughly 1323.4 km altitude. The
exact “geodetic orbit” parameters will be forwarded to you in the
near future. If all mission operations proceed as planned and no new
anomalies are encountered, the Project expects to resume Jason-1 science and
operational data delivery by 4 May 2012. The move from the altimetry
reference orbit has been a difficult decision to take, but it also signals
the start of an exciting new chapter in the extraordinary mission of
Jason-1.
Very best regards.
Thierry Guinle & Glenn Shirtliffe
CNES & NASA/JPL Jason-1 Project Managers
Additional information from PO.DAAC User Services:
This new "geodetic orbit" will greatly impact the science quality
of operational and other datasets. Until a thorough cal/val has been
performed (which could take several months) please use the new data with
caution. Once the data become available they will be located in
FTP folders ending with _geodetic, however, since the project is still
working out logistics the folder names may change. Another announcement
with more details will be sent out when the data become operational.
For further questions please email podaac@podaac.jpl.nasa.gov
We apologize if you receive multiple copies of this announcement