The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
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Copernicus Sentinel-6 builds on heritage from the French–US Jason series, ESA’s CryoSat and the Copernicus Sentinel-3 missions. Developed by ESA, the main instrument is the Poseidon-4 radar altimeter. It improves on precision and stability of the radar altimeters on the Jason series and also inherits a high-resolution synthetic aperture radar mode from CryoSat and Copernicus Sentinel-3, but with a design that allows synthetic aperture radar and low-resolution modes to be combined.
An advanced microwave radiometer, provided by NASA, supports Poseidon-4. It accounts for water vapour in atmosphere, which affects the speed of the altimeter’s radar pulses. The satellites also carry a precise orbit determination package, including a GPS receiver and a laser retroreflector.