Nasa and its mission partners have ended the US-European third satellite mission, Jason-2 / Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM).
The decision to end the mission on 1 October comes after the spacecraft’s power system performance was found to be worsening.
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The satellite, which was designed to measure sea surface height, had exceeded its three-year design life.
The Jason-2 / OSTM was launched in 2008 by Nasa, the French space agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).
Nasa Headquarters Science Mission Directorate associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said: “Today we celebrate the end of this resoundingly successful international mission.
“Jason-2 / OSTM has provided unique insight into ocean currents and sea-level rise with tangible benefits to marine forecasting, meteorology and our understanding of climate change.”
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By GlobalDataDuring its lifetime, the satellite detected a near 2in rise in global sea levels. It generated more than one million data products and contributed to more than 2,100 science paper publications.
NOAA satellite and information service assistant administrator Steve Volz said: “Jason-2 / OSTM was a high point of operational satellite oceanography as the first Jason mission to formally include EUMETSAT and NOAA as partners.
“During its 11-year run, Jason-2 / OSTM helped improve NOAA’s hurricane intensity forecasts and provided important observations of marine winds and waves and in doing so has anchored these essential ocean altimetry observations in NOAA’s operational observing system requirements.”
The satellite’s final decommissioning will be carried out by CNES on 10 October. Jason-3, which was launched in 2016, will serve as its successor.
