ESA - CryoSat

ESA title

The mission

ESA’s Earth Explorer CryoSat mission is dedicated to measuring the thickness of polar sea ice and monitoring changes in the ice sheets that blanket Greenland and Antarctica. Its main payload is a SAR Interferometric Radar Altimeter, which is designed for ice, measuring changes at the margins of vast ice sheets and floating ice in polar oceans.

The launch

Date: 08 April 2010
Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Rocket: Russian/Ukrainian Dnepr based on SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile

1st altimeter of its kind
10+ yrs in orbit
719 km mean altitude
92° inclination

CryoSat

Arctic diatoms

Will climate change turn the Arctic green?

18/06/2024 2530 views 9 likes

Full Earth disc from the Meteosat Third Generation Imager

10 ways Earth is interconnected

22/04/2024 3183 views 14 likes

Cadman Ice Shelf 2023 compared to 2017

Warming ocean causing rapid glacier retreat

28/11/2023 4288 views 103 likes

CryoSat

Enabling & Support

Life beyond the leak for ESA’s CryoSat

22/11/2023 7374 views 140 likes

Antarctic ice shelf melt

Antarctic ice shelf demise

13/10/2023 21349 views 118 likes

CryoSat's 'roof'

CryoSat mission extended to 2025

More items

Applications
Image gallery
Open
Applications
Video gallery
Open
Story
Applications
Downloads

07/09/2005 4749 views 2 likes
Read
Story
Applications
Documents & publications

22/07/2014 2709 views 5 likes
Read

Discover CryoSat

CryoSat

ESA's ice mission

19086 views 57 likes

Facts and figures

10411 views 15 likes

Sea ice

Sea ice

12814 views 33 likes

Ice sheets

8703 views 13 likes

Inside the CryoSat-2 satellite

Satellite

16657 views 30 likes

Measuring the freeboard of sea ice

CryoSat’s instruments

15692 views 32 likes

About the launch

5094 views 7 likes

Altimeter readings over Issyk Kul

Surpassing expectations

2765 views 7 likes

Kiruna station

Data flow

4163 views 5 likes

Altimeter reading over Cuba

Data products

6322 views 19 likes

Setting up camp

Essential groundwork

1838 views 4 likes

Follow us

Subscribe @ESA_EO @esa_earth

Recommended

Observing the Earth

FutureEO

FutureEO

Earth Explorers icon

Earth Explorers

CryoSat technical information & data access

ESA's ice mission

CryoSatApp (iPhone)

ESA's ice mission

CryoSatApp (iPad)