ODYSEA: a future satellite for measuring surface winds and currents and their interactions

The Ocean Dynamics and Surface Exchange with the Atmosphere (ODYSEA) is a concept for a future satellite now under evaluation by NASA as part of its Earth System Explorer program. ODYSEA is one of the four concepts pre-selected in 2024 with a final selection in 2025 of two missions to be launched in 2030 and 2032. ODYSEA is proposed by our international science team led by Sarah Gille, with a strong technical support from JPL and CNES. If selected, ODYSEA would provide the first-ever global measure of total surface currents velocities. ODYSEA includes simultaneous ocean vector winds with improved resolution for coupled air-sea science and applications closer than ever to the coast. ODYSEA is designed to target speciific science objectives on the understanding of coupled dynamics of ocean currents and winds, the exchange of kinetic energy between the ocean and atmosphere, and the response of currents to winds. Besides the science of the coupled ocean and atmosphere dynamics, ODYSEA data is expected to contribute to a wide range of applications, either directly (indentification of surface transport pathways from plankton to pollution) or indirectly via the assimilation of surface winds and currents into operational forecasting system or numerical twins of different components of the Earth System.