CryoSat

Jump to: Mission Objectives, Mission Instrumentation, Mission Parameters, Additional Information

Mission Photos:

Courtesy of ESA

Mission Objectives:

A mission to measure change in the cryosphere, CryoSat-2 will measure the thickness of sea-ice and the surface elevation of ice sheets in both Northern and Southern hemispheres. For this, it uses an advanced radar altimeter combined with Precise Orbit Determination.

As the mission is intended to measure small secular change in a measure of distance it is necessary to use laser ranging for:

1. calibration of the altimeter and
2. support to the POD

The latter will primarily be performed with DORIS, but the SLR measurements will provide an essential independent tracking data type.

Unfortunately, the CryoSat-1 satellite was lost due to a launch failure on October 8, 2005 (ESA news release). CryoSat-2, identical to CryoSat-1, launched successfully on April 8, 2010 (ESA news release).

Mission Instrumentation:

CryoSat will have the following instrumentation onboard:

1. SAR/Inteferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL)
2. DORIS receiver
3. Retroreflector array
4. Three star trackers

Mission Parameters:

Additional Information:

• Web sites:
• ESA Cryosat-1 home page
• ESA Cryosat-2 home page
• Publications:
• Femenias, P.F., "ESA EO Envisat and Cryosat Missions Status (Poster)", 14th International Laser Ranging Workshop, San Fernando, Spain, June 7-11, 2004.", 14th International Laser Ranging Workshop, San Fernando, Spain, June 7-11, 2004.
• Reflected wavefront measurement of Cryosat LRR module
• CryoSat-LRR-01 Laser Retro Reflector Technical Description

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