Jason-3 is an international Earth observation satellite mission that continues the ocean surface height measurements begun in 1992 by the TOPEX/Poseidon mission, followed by Jason-1 launched in 2001 and Jason-2 in 2008. Jason-3 is the result of a four-agency international partnership consisting of NOAA, NASA, the French Space Agency CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales), and EUMETSAT (the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites). The spacecraft was built by Thales Alenia Space and launched by SpaceX on the 21st Falcon 9 flight.