Category: News of the other missions

Cryosat "SARIn" mode, using its two antennas, is meant for surfaces with steep slopes - so not open ocean, in particular. However, ESA has been rolling the satellite on its side to calibrate the instrument, generating an "artificial slope" with respect to the ocean surface. This generates "swath-like" data and thus can approach what we will have with SWOT. The data acquired during the seven roll campaigns are now released publicly released to all users.

Since the beginning of the mission, CryoSat has executed several roll campaigns during which it has been rolled left and right to calibrate the interferometric baseline of its altimeter. All of the SARin data (FBR, L1B, L2I, L2) acquired during these roll campaigns have now been made available to all users. This represent a unique opportunity to perform innovative swath processing prior the launch of SWOT. ESA highly encourages the scientific community to use this dataset and provide feedback and recommendations for future roll campaigns.

• ESA news for more details
• Access to the data