Oceanography Satellite Jason-1 Decommissioned
Long-Running NASA/CNES Ocean Satellite Takes Final Bow
“The curtain has come down on a superstar of the satellite oceanography world that played the “Great Blue Way” of the world’s ocean for 11 1/2 years. The successful joint NASA and Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) Jason-1 ocean altimetry satellite was decommissioned this week following the loss of its last remaining transmitter.
Jason-1 has been a resounding scientific, technical, and international success,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “The mission met all of its requirements, performed an extended mission and demonstrated how a long-term climate data record should be established from successively launched satellites. Since launch, it has charted nearly 1.6 inches (4 centimeters) of rise in global sea levels, a critical measure of climate change and a direct result of global warming. The Jason satellite series provides the most accurate measure of this impact, which is felt all over the globe.”
Marc’s note: While Jason-1 is decommissioned, Jason-2 continues operation and Jason-3 will be launched sometime in 2015.
Well too bad about the loss, strikes me as odd that the life time of this satellite has ended. Hopefully they will make the next transmitter systems more robust. I get the feeling that the system was retired due to obsolescence, and that the next generation will have more resolution. Keep in mind that if you were in school in the 90’s the expectation is that most of north America should be underwater by now. at 1.6 in that’s not far off from the sea level rise that the Danish experienced that caused their culture to build pumps and dikes. Yes the Earth is warming, but it’s unlikely due to man we should be really figuring out the real cause, eg solar output, geological activity. Those are the things that the geological record and ice cores support. The carbon fraud fundraising needs to end, better science should mean the development of better engineering, to protect people from environmental changes which have destroyed societies all the way back to times BC.