It has taken Jason-2 less than one month to deliver its first maps of global ocean surface topography, surface wave height and wind speed. “We’re delighted with what we’re seeing!” says Nicolas Picot, Jason-2 Product Quality Manager at CNES. “With all the hard work that everyone has put in, we were hoping initial results would compare well with Jason-1 but we weren’t expecting them to be this good so soon!

Jason-2 was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on 20 June, becoming the latest in a line of oceanography satellites. Once in space, its instruments were switched on one by one and the satellite was manoeuvred into its final orbit at an altitude of 1,336 km.

25 August 2008

25 July 2008

24 July 2008

10 July 2008

23 June 2008

With the ever-growing population of space debris, the possibility of a debris object colliding with a satellite has become a major concern. The award for François Laporte’s paper on this subject, co-written with Eloy Sasot from ATOS-ORIGIN, clearly illustrates a new awareness among the space community that this type of risk needs to be addressed.

18 juin 2008