The NOAA GEOSAT geophysical data records : Summary of the first year of the Exact Repeat Mission

Since its launch in March 1985, the GEOSAT altimeter has provided more than 3 years of global observations of sea level, wind speed, and significant wave height. Sea level data collected during the first 18 months are classified, but the wind and wave data from this period have recently been released and are available through NOAA (Dobson et al., 1988). In October 1986, a series of maneuvers was performed to produce a ground track repeating within 1 km at a period of 17.05 days. Because the resulting sea surface profiles fall within a few kilometers of previously released Seasat data tracks, these new data are not classified. This new portion of the GEOSAT program, known as the Exact Repeat Mission (ERM), became operational November 8, 1986.