After more than 11 years in orbit and well beyond its three- to five-year mission baseline, the Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM) on Jason-2 will permanently cease acquisition of scientific data at 06:48 UTC on 1 October 2019 due to aging-related issues onboard the spacecraft. Approximately three hours later, the final pass 147 for science cycle 644 will be produced as an OGDR product and disseminated to operational users. IGDR production will cease about 2.5 days later, GDR production approximately 2 months later. Additional information regarding the OSTM/Jason-2 mission will follow in the coming days in the form of a joint press release from CNES, NASA/JPL, NOAA, and EUMETSAT.
The operation of the Jason-3 reference mission remains nominal and its continued data production will not be affected in any way.
This impacts CoastWatch users as follows:
- The Jason-2 Along-track Significant Wave Height, Wind Speed and Sea Level Anomaly product will cease to be updated after the last OGDR has been processed.
- The gridded multi-mission, Sea level Anomaly and Geostrophic Currents Near-real time products will continue to include Jason-2 until October 11.
- When produced, the gridded multi-mission, Sea level Anomaly and Geostrophic Currents delayed-mode products will include Jason-2 up to October 11.