Geosat
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The GEOSAT (GEOdetic SATellite) was a U.S. Navy Earth_observation_satellite, launched on March 12, 1985 into an 800 km, 108-deg inclination orbit, carrying a radar altimeter capable of measuring the distance from the satellite to sea surface with a relative precision of about 5 cm.
After a classified Geodetic Mission (GM) for the Navy, GEOSAT's scientific Exact Repeat Mission (ERM) began on November 8, 1986 after being maneuvered into a 17.05 day repeat orbit. When the ERM ended in January 1990, due to failure of the two on-board tape recorders, more than three years of ERM data were collected and made available to the scientific community.
The U.S. Navy declassified parts of the Geodetic Mission data in 1990 that covered a doughnut-shaped area of ocean that surrounds Antarctica between 60 and 72 degrees south latitude. In 1992, further parts of the Geodetic Mission data over the oceans south of 30 degrees South were released. The GEOSAT data for the entire global sea surface was declassified in July 1995 after the competition of the geodetic phase of ESA ERS-1 mission.
The successor to GEOSAT is the Geosat Follow-On mission.
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