Calibration strategy for ERS scatterometer data reprocessing

From the beginning of its mission, in 1995, the ERS-2 satellite has recorded an important set of data. The performance and accuracy of its instrument provide precious information for the scientific community. The experience acquired during 10 years has led the European Space Agency (ESA) to plan a reprocessing activity of the entire set of the available scatterometer data. This reprocessing activity will use the enhanced on-ground processing¹ and calibration² chains. In this paper, the calibration strategy for the scatterometer data reprocessing from the beginning of the mission is presented. It consists in looking for a calibration area (rainforest, ocean or ice) which would allow a highly accurate tuning of the antenna patterns (already tuned within the specifications).