The SARAL/AltiKa Altimetry Satellite Mission

The India-France SARAL/AltiKa mission is the first Ka-band altimetric mission dedi-cated to oceanography. The mission objectives are primarily the observation of the oceanic mesoscales but also include coastal oceanography, global and regional sea level monitoring, data assimilation, and operational oceanography. Secondary objectives include ice sheet and inland waters monitoring. One year after launch, the results widely confirm the nominal expectations in terms of accuracy, data quality and data availability in general. Today's performances are compliant with specifications with an overall observed performance for the Sea Surface Height RMS of 3.4 cm to be compared to a 4 cm requirement. Some scientific examples are provided that illustrate some salient features of today's SARAL/AltiKa data with regard to standard altimetry: data availability, data accuracy at the mesoscales, data usefulness in costal area, over ice sheet, and for inland waters.

[1]  Laurent Rey,et al.  AltiKa: a Ka-band Altimetry Payload and System for Operational Altimetry during the GMES Period , 2006, Sensors (Basel, Switzerland).

[2]  Joaquín Tintoré,et al.  Illustration of the emerging capabilities of SARAL/AltiKa in the coastal zone using a multi-platform approach , 2015 .

[3]  Charlie N. Barron,et al.  Estimates of surface drifter trajectories in the equatorial Atlantic: a multi-model ensemble approach , 2012, Ocean Dynamics.

[4]  P. Chauhan,et al.  Use of SARAL/AltiKa Observations for Modeling River Flow , 2015 .

[5]  Christian Jayles,et al.  DORIS/DIODE: Real-Time Orbit Determination Performance on Board SARAL/AltiKa , 2015 .

[6]  N. Steunou,et al.  AltiKa Altimeter: Instrument Description and In Flight Performance , 2015 .

[7]  Joaquín Tintoré,et al.  Assessing SARAL/AltiKa Data in the Coastal Zone: Comparisons with HF Radar Observations , 2015 .

[8]  Alexei V. Kouraev,et al.  Study of Lake Baikal Ice Cover from Radar Altimetry and In–Situ Observations , 2015 .

[9]  N. Steunou,et al.  AltiKa Radiometer: Instrument Description and In–Flight Performance , 2015 .

[10]  P. Thibaut,et al.  Investigating Short-Wavelength Correlated Errors on Low-Resolution Mode Altimetry , 2014 .

[11]  Jean Tournadre,et al.  Validation of AltiKa Matching Pursuit Rain Flag , 2015 .

[12]  Denis Blumstein,et al.  Envisat and SARAL/AltiKa Observations of the Antarctic Ice Sheet: A Comparison Between the Ku-band and Ka-band , 2015 .

[13]  Pierre Prandi,et al.  SARAL/AltiKa Global Statistical Assessment and Cross-Calibration with Jason-2 , 2015 .

[14]  N. Picot,et al.  SARAL/AltiKa Wet Tropospheric Correction: In-Flight Calibration, Retrieval Strategies and Performances , 2015 .