Jason-3

Jason-3 is an international Earth observation satellite mission that continues the ocean surface height measurements begun in 1992 by the TOPEX/Poseidon mission, followed by Jason-1 launched in 2001 and Jason-2 in 2008.^[4]

Jason-3 is the result of a four-agency international partnership consisting of NOAA, NASA, the French Space Agency CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales), and EUMETSAT (the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites). The spacecraft was built by Thales Alenia Space and launched by SpaceX on the 21st Falcon 9 flight.

Science objectives

The science objectives for Jason-3 are:

• Extend the time series of ocean surface topography measurements beyond TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 to accomplish two decades of observations
• Provide a minimum of three years of global ocean surface topography measurement
• Determine the variability of ocean circulation at decadal time scales from combined data record of TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1
• Improve the measure of the time-averaged ocean circulation
• Improve the measure of global sea level change
• Improve open ocean tide models

Spacecraft

The satellite was built around a Proteus satellite bus by Thales Alenia Space under contract from CNES. A pair of deployable, tracking solar arrays supply a total of 580 watts of power. Four hydrazine monopropellant thrusters are used for orbital maneuvering. Attitude control is provided by reaction wheels, with magnetorquers used to periodically despin the wheels.^[5] Jason-3 weighed about 553 kg (1,219 lb) at launch, with a dry mass of 525 kg (1,157 lb).^[1]

Instruments

Jason-3 carries five main instruments. The primary instrument is the Poseidon-3B Altimeter, which is derived from the Poseidon-3 carried on Jason-2. The other main instruments are Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS), Advanced Microwave Radiometer-2 (AMR-2), Global Positioning System Payload (GPSP), and Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA). Two additional "passenger instruments" are carried as part of the Joint Radiation Experiment. These are CARMEN-3 (Characterization and Modeling of Environment), which measures charged particle flux, and Light Particle Telescope (LPT), which measures radiation and charged particles.^[6]

Launch

Falcon 9 rolling out on January 15, 2015

Appearing on the SpaceX manifest as early as July 2013,^[7] Jason-3 was originally scheduled for launch on July 22, 2015. However, this date was pushed back to August 19 following the discovery of contamination in one of the satellite's thrusters, requiring the thruster to be replaced and further inspected.^[8][9] The launch was further delayed by several months due to the loss of a Falcon 9 rocket with the CRS-7 mission on June 28.^[10]

After SpaceX conducted their return-to-flight mission in December 2015 with the upgraded Falcon 9 Full Thrust, 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.^[11][12]

A 7-second static fire test of the rocket was completed on January 11, 2016.^[13] The Launch Readiness Review was signed off by all parties on January 15, 2016, and the launch proceeded successfully on January 17, 2016, at 18:42 UTC. The Jason-3 payload was deployed into its target orbit at 830 miles (1,336 km) altitude after an orbital insertion burn about 56 minutes into the flight.^[14] It was the 21st Falcon 9 flight overall^[11] and the second into a high-inclination orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 4E in California.^[8]

Post-mission landing test

First stage of Falcon 9 Flight 21 descending over the floating landing platform, January 17, 2016

Following paperwork filed with US regulatory authorities in 2015,^[15] 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,^[16] located about 200 miles (320 km) out in the Pacific Ocean.

This attempt followed the first successful landing and booster recovery on the previous launch in December 2015.^[17][18] The controlled descent through the atmosphere and landing attempt for each booster is an arrangement that is not used on other orbital launch vehicles.^[19]

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 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.^[20][21][22]

Debris from the fire, including several rocket engines attached to the octaweb assembly, arrived back to shore on board the floating landing platform on January 18, 2016.^[23]

See also

• TOPEX/Poseidon
• Jason-1
• Ocean Surface Topography Mission (Jason-2)
• List of Falcon 9 launches

References

External links

About the satellite

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jason-3.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Falcon 9 Flight 21.

• Jason-3 website by NASA JPL
• Jason-3 website by NASA JPL's Ocean Surface Topography program
• Jason-3 website by NOAA
• Jason-3 website by CNES
• Jason-3 website by EUMETSAT
• Jason-3 website by ESA's eoPortal

About the flight

• Jason-3 press kit by SpaceX

Physical oceanography
Waves	Airy wave theory Ballantine scale Benjamin–Feir instability Boussinesq approximation Breaking wave Clapotis Cnoidal wave Cross sea Dispersion Edge wave Equatorial waves Fetch Gravity wave Green's law Infragravity wave Internal wave Kelvin wave Kinematic wave Longshore drift Luke's variational principle Mild-slope equation Radiation stress Rogue wave Rossby wave Rossby-gravity waves Sea state Seiche Significant wave height Sneaker wave Soliton Stokes boundary layer Stokes drift Stokes wave Swell Trochoidal wave Tsunami megatsunami Undertow Ursell number Wave action Wave base Wave height Wave power Wave radar Wave setup Wave shoaling Wave turbulence Wave–current interaction Waves and shallow water one-dimensional Saint-Venant equations shallow water equations Wind wave model
Circulation	Atmospheric circulation Baroclinity Boundary current Coriolis effect Downwelling Eddy Ekman layer Ekman spiral Ekman transport El Niño Southern Oscillation General Circulation Model Geostrophic current Global Ocean Data Analysis Project Gulf Stream Halothermal circulation Humboldt Current Hydrothermal circulation Langmuir circulation Longshore drift Loop Current Maelstrom Modular ocean model Ocean dynamics Ocean gyre Princeton ocean model Rip current Subsurface currents Sverdrup balance Thermohaline circulation shutdown Upwelling Whirlpool World Ocean Circulation Experiment
Tides	Amphidromic point Earth tide Head of tide Internal tide Lunitidal interval Perigean spring tide Rip tide Rule of twelfths Slack water Tidal bore Tidal force Tidal power Tidal race Tidal range Tidal resonance Tide gauge Tideline
Landforms	Abyssal fan Abyssal plain Atoll Bathymetric chart Coastal geography Cold seep Continental margin Continental rise Continental shelf Contourite Guyot Hydrography Oceanic basin Oceanic plateau Oceanic trench Passive margin Seabed Seamount Submarine canyon Submarine volcano
Plate tectonics	Convergent boundary Divergent boundary Fracture zone Hydrothermal vent Marine geology Mid-ocean ridge Mohorovičić discontinuity Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis Oceanic crust Outer trench swell Ridge push Seafloor spreading Slab pull Slab suction Slab window Subduction Transform fault Volcanic arc
Ocean zones	Benthic Deep ocean water Deep sea Littoral Mesopelagic Oceanic Pelagic Photic Surf Swash
Sea level	Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis Future sea level Global Sea Level Observing System North West Shelf Operational Oceanographic System Sea-level curve Sea level rise World Geodetic System
Acoustics	Deep scattering layer Hydroacoustics Ocean acoustic tomography Sofar bomb SOFAR channel Underwater acoustics
Satellites	Jason-1 Jason-2 (Ocean Surface Topography Mission) Jason-3
Related	Argo Benthic lander Color of water DSV Alvin Marginal sea Marine energy Marine pollution Mooring National Oceanographic Data Center Ocean Ocean exploration Ocean observations Ocean reanalysis Ocean surface topography Ocean thermal energy conversion Oceanography Pelagic sediment Sea surface microlayer Sea surface temperature Seawater Science On a Sphere Thermocline Underwater glider Water column World Ocean Atlas
Category Commons