ICESat
Sign in to saveAlso known as Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite
ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite) was a NASA satellite mission for measuring ice sheet mass balance, cloud and aerosol heights, as well as land topography and vegetation characteristics. It operated as part of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS). ICESat was launched 13 January 2003 on a Delta II launch vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California into a near-circular, near-polar orbit with an altitude of approximately . It operated for seven years before being retired in February 2010, after its scientific payload shut down and scientists were unable to restart it.
Key facts
- Spaceflight.name
- ICESat-1
- Spaceflight.names_list
- Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite
- Spaceflight.image
- icesat.jpg
- Spaceflight.image_caption
- Artist's rendering of the ICESat-1 satellite
- Spaceflight.image_size
- 300px
- Spaceflight.mission_type
- Earth observation
- Spaceflight.operator
- NASA
- Spaceflight.COSPAR_ID
- 2003-002A
- Spaceflight.SATCAT
- 27642
- Spaceflight.website
- ICESat
- Spaceflight.mission_duration
- 5 years (planned) (achieved)
- Spaceflight.spacecraft_bus
- BCP-2000
- Spaceflight.manufacturer
- Ball Aerospace
- Spaceflight.power
- 640 watts
- Spaceflight.launch_date
- 13 January 2003, 00:45:00 UTC
- Spaceflight.launch_rocket
- Delta II 7320-10D-294
- Spaceflight.launch_site
- Vandenberg, SLC-2W
- Spaceflight.launch_contractor
- Boeing
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Image
- ICESat spacecraft model.png
Show 4 more facts
- Commons category
- ICESat
- UTC date of spacecraft launch
- 2003-01-13
- time of object orbit decay
- 2010-08-30
- service retirement
- 2010-08-14
via Wikidata · CC0
~4 min read
Article
6 sectionsContents
- Satellite instruments
- Operational history
- Follow-on satellite
- References
- External links
- Further reading
ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite) was a NASA satellite mission for measuring ice sheet mass balance, cloud and aerosol heights, as well as land topography and vegetation characteristics. It operated as part of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS). ICESat was launched 13 January 2003 on a Delta II launch vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California into a near-circular, near-polar orbit with an altitude of approximately . It operated for seven years before being retired in February 2010, after its scientific payload shut down and scientists were unable to restart it.
The ICESat mission was designed to provide elevation data needed to determine ice sheet mass balance as well as cloud property information, especially for stratospheric clouds common over polar areas. It provides topography and vegetation data around the globe, in addition to the polar-specific coverage over the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The satellite was found useful in assessing important forest characteristics, including tree density.