The Benefits of the Ka-Band as Evidenced from the SARAL/AltiKa Altimetric Mission: Quality Assessment and Unique Characteristics of AltiKa Data

Pascal Bonnefond (1) , Jacques Verron (2) , Jérémie Aublanc (3) , K. Babu (4) , Muriel Berge-Nguyen (5) , Mathilde Cancet (6) , Aditya Chaudhary (4) , Jean-Francois Cretaux (5) , Frédéric Frappart (5) , Bruce J. Haines (7) , Olivier Laurain (8) , Annabelle Ollivier (3) , Jean-Christophe Poisson (3) , Pierre Prandi (9) , Rashmi Sharma (4) , Pierre Thibaut (9) , Christopher Watson (10)

1 SYRTE - Systèmes de Référence Temps Espace
2 IGE - Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement
3 CLS - Collecte Localisation Satellites [Brest]
4 ISRO - Indian Space Research Organisation
5 LEGOS - Laboratoire d'études en Géophysique et océanographie spatiales
6 NOVELTIS [Sté]
7 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
8 GEOAZUR 7329 - Géoazur
9 CLS - Collecte Localisation Satellites [Toulouse]
10 Surveying and Spatial Science Group

The India-France SARAL/AltiKa mission is the first Ka-band altimetric mission dedicated 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. The mission ended its nominal phase after 3 years in orbit and began a new phase (drifting orbit) in July 2016. The objective of this paper is to provide a state of the art of the achievements of the SARAL/AltiKa mission in terms of quality assessment and unique characteristics of AltiKa data. It shows that the AltiKa data have similar accuracy at the centimeter level in term of absolute water level whatever the method (from local to global) and the type of water surfaces (ocean and lakes). It shows also that beyond the fact that AltiKa data quality meets the expectations and initial mission requirements, the unique characteristics of the altimeter and the Ka-band offer unique contributions in fields that were previously not fully foreseen

Domains: Earth Sciences; Physics [physics]; Astrophysics [astro-ph]

Pascal Bonnefond, Jacques Verron, Jérémie Aublanc, K. Babu, Muriel Berge-Nguyen, et al.. The Benefits of the Ka-Band as Evidenced from the SARAL/AltiKa Altimetric Mission: Quality Assessment and Unique Characteristics of AltiKa Data. Remote Sensing, 2018, 10 (1), pp.83. ⟨10.3390/rs10010083⟩. ⟨hal-01852702⟩