NASA’s ICESat Satellite Has Re-entered Earth’s Atmosphere after Final Successful Scientific Mission
31.08.2010 - Atmosphere & Space, Ice & Snow, Bi-polar
NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation (ICESat) satellite was decommissioned after successfully completing its last scientific mission earlier this year and re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on Monday, August 30th. Debris from the ICESat spacecraft fell to Earth in the Barents Sea at approximately 5:00 am Eastern Daylight Time (09:00 GMT).
Launched in 2003 on a three-year mission to collect data, ICESat was specifically designed to study Earth's Polar Regions with a space-based laser altimeter called the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System, or GLAS.
Over its lifetime, the satellite had a significant impact on the understanding of ice sheet and sea ice dynamics, and led to major scientific advances in measuring changes in the mass of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets, polar sea ice thickness, vegetation-canopy heights, and the heights of clouds and aerosols. Thanks to ICESat data, scientists were able to identify a broad network of lakes beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Providing detailed information on the evolution of the Earth’s Polar Regions in the face of climate change, ICESat provided much-needed information for government policymaking decisions, delivering data on the rapid thinning of the Arctic.
After seven years in orbit and 15 laser-operations campaigns, ICESat's science mission ended in February 2010. Anticipating the end of the ICESat mission, and in accordance with the National Research Council's Decadal Survey of future NASA Earth science missions, NASA has begun development of ICESat-2. The launch of ICESat’s successor, which will prolong the legacy of its predecessor and improve our understanding of the Earth’s Polar Regions through advanced technology, is planned for 2015.
