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?

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Full Earth disc from the Meteosat Third Generation Imager

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Cadman Ice Shelf 2023 compared to 2017

Warming ocean causing rapid glacier retreat

28/11/2023 4340 views 103 likes

CryoSat

Enabling & Support

Life beyond the leak for ESA’s CryoSat

22/11/2023 7394 views 140 likes

Antarctic ice shelf melt

Antarctic ice shelf demise

13/10/2023 21382 views 118 likes

CryoSat's 'roof'

CryoSat mission extended to 2025

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07/09/2005 4751 views 2 likes
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Documents & publications

22/07/2014 2711 views 5 likes
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Discover CryoSat

CryoSat

ESA's ice mission

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Facts and figures

10434 views 15 likes

Sea ice

Sea ice

12834 views 33 likes

Ice sheets

8718 views 13 likes

Inside the CryoSat-2 satellite

Satellite

16688 views 30 likes

Measuring the freeboard of sea ice

CryoSat’s instruments

15717 views 32 likes

About the launch

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Altimeter readings over Issyk Kul

Surpassing expectations

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Kiruna station

Data flow

4174 views 5 likes

Altimeter reading over Cuba

Data products

6330 views 19 likes

Setting up camp

Essential groundwork

1845 views 4 likes

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