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

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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

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CryoSat's 'roof'

CryoSat mission extended to 2025

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07/09/2005 4761 views 2 likes
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Documents & publications

22/07/2014 2715 views 5 likes
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Discover CryoSat

CryoSat

ESA's ice mission

19178 views 57 likes

Facts and figures

10461 views 15 likes

Sea ice

Sea ice

12872 views 33 likes

Ice sheets

8749 views 13 likes

Inside the CryoSat-2 satellite

Satellite

16751 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

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Altimeter reading over Cuba

Data products

6348 views 19 likes

Setting up camp

Essential groundwork

1852 views 4 likes

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