ESA - CryoSat

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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

Jakobshavn Glacier, Greenland

ESA and NASA deliver first joint picture of Greenland Ice S…

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Arctic diatoms

Will climate change turn the Arctic green?

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Full Earth disc from the Meteosat Third Generation Imager

10 ways Earth is interconnected

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Cadman Ice Shelf 2023 compared to 2017

Warming ocean causing rapid glacier retreat

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CryoSat

Enabling & Support

Life beyond the leak for ESA’s CryoSat

22/11/2023 7422 views 140 likes

CryoSat's 'roof'

CryoSat mission extended to 2025

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07/09/2005 4757 views 2 likes
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Documents & publications

22/07/2014 2714 views 5 likes
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Discover CryoSat

CryoSat

ESA's ice mission

19174 views 57 likes

Facts and figures

10454 views 15 likes

Sea ice

Sea ice

12861 views 33 likes

Ice sheets

8736 views 13 likes

Inside the CryoSat-2 satellite

Satellite

16737 views 30 likes

Measuring the freeboard of sea ice

CryoSat’s instruments

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About the launch

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Altimeter readings over Issyk Kul

Surpassing expectations

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Kiruna station

Data flow

4187 views 5 likes

Altimeter reading over Cuba

Data products

6343 views 19 likes

Setting up camp

Essential groundwork

1850 views 4 likes

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