ICESat

ICESat (Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite ), part of NASA's Earth Observation System, is the name of a satellite mission for the determination of Eispanzerdicken, their alteration, the measurement of height profiles of clouds and aerosols as well as the amount of vegetation and sea ice thickness. The main instrument on board was the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System ( GLAS ), which was developed by the Goddard Space Flight Center.

Mission History

ICESat was on 13 January 2003 shot by a Boeing Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on a nearly circular orbit, which spans the two polar regions. The height of the rocket reached after starting at 600 km.

The first measurements were carried out on 20 February 2003. Already on March 29 failed the first of the three laser so that the operating times had to be rescheduled. In the years to 15 measurement campaigns were carried out until 11 October 2009 failed the last laser. Efforts to activate it again, were discontinued in February 2010.

Between 23 June and 14 July NASA's orbital altitude of the satellite decreased gradually to 200 km in order to reduce the service life. On August 14, 2010, all systems were turned off after also the remaining fuel had been consumed. On August 30, ICESat entered the atmosphere and burned up mostly. Some debris fell around 09:00 UTC in the Barents Sea.

Successor

Its successor, ICESat -2 will 2016Vorlage: Future / start operation in two years. Unlike ICESat then to several lasers are used simultaneously, so that terrain can be detected already during a single circulation.