Cryosat-2 Surpassing Expectations Halfway through Commissioning Phase
05.07.2010 - Logistics, Atmosphere & Space, Water & Oceans, Ice & Snow, Bi-polar
Halfway through its commissioning phase, the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 satellite is “in very good shape, exceeding in-orbit specifications,” declared Prof. Duncan Wingham, Lead Investigator for the CryoSat mission at ESA's Living Planet Symposium in Bergen, Norway.
Launched in April, CryoSat-2 recently delivered detailed images of a part of the surface of the Antarctic Ice Sheet never before tracked by satellite. The satellite’s first synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data images were taken over central Antarctica, revealing the fine structure of the ice sheet, which would have otherwise been blurry if taken using a conventional radar altimeter. CryoSat-2 Project Managaer Richard Francis called the resolution “amazing”.
Cryosat-2 is dedicated to monitoring Earth’s ice fields in order to get a better idea of how climate change is affecting them. Its primary payload, the SAR Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL), can measure ice thickness to within centimetres, something particularly useful for tracking changes along the edge of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.
CryoSat-2’s commissioning phase will continue until autumn 2010.
