Jason-1

Jason-1 was launched on December 7, 2001. The Jason-1 Launch vehicle is a Boeing Delta II 7920. The Delta vehicle is shared with another Nasa mission, Timed, with Jason-1 separated first. The launch site is Vandenberg Air Force Base. Its lifespan, announced for 5 years is already exceeded and the current capacities of the satellite still let forecast good performances.

Still developed jointly by Cnes and Nasa, Jason-1 is the follow-on of Topex-Poseidon. Jason-1 is a mini-satellite, based on the Proteus multimission spacecraft bus. All its instruments derive from Topex/Poseidon but limiting their weight and their consumption of energy. Its unchanged orbit, compared to that of Topex/Poseidon allows a continuous acquisition of measurements and thus, further our understanding of many ocean phenomena on the long term.

A new concept of satellite control and data processing operations were developed in order to deliver near-real time measurements to an international user community for operational oceanography.

The user community thus has an important role to play in sustaining the mission's success in the years ahead through the Jason series of satellites.