For those of you who were unaware, I've been working at JPL for about a year. During this time, I have been work almost exclusively on writing various pieces of software for use on the ground for OSTM. Today, however, is the big day. A little bit before 1 am PST tonight, OSTM will launch. If you're interested in seeing the launch, it will be telecast on NASA TV. Some other briefings will be starting at 1pm PST today.

Since I expect that none of you actually know what OSTM does, I'll summarize breifly. Basically, OSTM is the third satellite in a series which have been measuring sea surface height since 1992. OSTM will be continuing that mission to keep building the long-term sea surface height data record once Jason-1 (the most immediate predecessor) fails. Based on the most recent data that I've seen, the sea levels were rising at about 1.5 mm/year when Topex was launched back in 1992. Now, about six years into Jason-1, sea surface height is rising at about 3 mm/year. OSTM will help us determine if this increase in sea level is a long term trend or something else by continuing to build the dataset.

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