CoAuthors

Matthias Raynal (CLS, France); Isabelino Denis (CNES, France); Nicolas Picot (CNES, France); Jean-Michel Lachiver (CNES, France)

HY-2A is the first altimetry and radiometry satellite of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), successfully launched on 15th of August 2011. The National Satellite Ocean Application Service (NSOAS) is responsible for the ground segment processing system as well as distributing collected data and HY-2A Level 2 products. The French contribution performed by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) on this project mainly consists in supplying the orbit, computed from DORIS, GPS and laser measurements.

Thanks to the development and the validation of the HY-2A Processing Prototype based on the S-IGDR waveforms analysis, the HY-2A data integration has been completed in the SSALTO/Duacs system in April 2014. Data quality monitoring is routinely performed at CLS, as part of the SALP (Système d'Altimétrie et Localisation Précise) project supported by CNES.

At the end of March 2016, HY-2A was moved towards a geodetic orbit (168 days repetitive). About 15 months of geodetic data have already been processed. The objective of this presentation is to give an overview of data quality before and after its orbital change and to explore the opportunities brought by the new HY-2A ground track.