The HY-2 satellite and its preliminary assessment

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. The HY-2 satellite was successfully launched on 16 August 2011. It carried four microwave instruments into space for operationally observing dynamic ocean environment parameters on a global scale. The HY-2 satellite altimeter provides sea surface height (SSH), significant wave height (SWH), sea surface wind (SSW) speed, and polar ice sheet elevation, while the HY-2 satellite scatterometer provides SSW fields. At the same time, other oceanic and atmospheric parameters such as sea surface temperature (SST) and wind speed, water vapor and liquid water content can also be obtained by its onboard scanning microwave radio-meter. In this paper, we show the data processing methods of the HY-2 satellite's payloads. The preliminary results show that wind vector, SSH, SWH, and SST conform to the designed technical specifications. 1. Introduction The HY-2 satellite carries four scientific instruments: a radar altimeter, microwave scatterometer, scanning microwave radiometer, and three-frequency microwave radiometer.