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CryoSat-2 on the road to recovery

12 March 2007

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Artist's impression of CryoSat in orbit.

The launch of the CryoSat spacecraft unfortunately failed on 8 October 2005 due to a malfunction of its Rockot launcher, which resulted in the total loss of the spacecraft.

At the meeting of the European Space Agency's Earth Observation Programme Board, which took place at ESA’s Headquarters in Paris on 23 and 24 February 2006, ESA received the green light from its Member States to build and launch a CryoSat recovery mission, CryoSat-2.

Credits: ESA - AOES Medialab

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Floating sea ice

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The footprint of the radar beam on the ground

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The footprint of the radar beam on the ground has parts slightly ahead of the satellite and parts behind it. The satellite moves at high speed in its orbit - towards some parets of the footprint and way from others. This relative speed induces slight frequency shifts in the returning radar energy, due to the Doppler effect, shown as blue or red tint here. The radar echo contains the combination of all this energy but by processing a correlated burst of radar pulses it is possible to slice up the returing echo into a series of Doppler beams.

Credits: ESA/AOES Medialab

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Estimated sea-ice thickness 1993-2001 from ERS-1/2

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Estimated sea-ice thickness in the Arctic (1993-2001). The radar altimeters on the European ERS satellites have made it possible to estimate sea-ice thickness in the Arctic. Although a remarkable scientific achievement, the map demonstrates the shortcomings of the existing satellite systems - there is a large data gap at the pole and the most dynamic areas at the outer edges of the ice sheets are not covered. Reaching latitudes of 88°, CryoSat-2 will monitor precise changes in the thickness of the polar ice sheets and floating sea ice to fill these gaps.

Credits: Laxon S., Peacock N. & Smith D., (2003), High interannual variability of sea-ice thickness in the Arctic Region, Nature, 425, 947-950. doi10.1038/nature02050.

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Plot showing Greenland ice-sheet elevation change

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Bilden visar hur istäcket på Grönland förändras. På den centrala högplatån faller det mer nederbörd vilket gör att istäcket där blir tjockare, medan det smälter längs kanterna.

Credits: Johannessen et al, 2006

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Plot showing Antarctic ice-sheet elevation change

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Plot showing rate of change of Antarctic ice-sheet elevation. The intermediate grey shading in the plot inset is where ice is resting on rock below sea level - these are areas where the greatest thinning has been observed. Light grey shows floating ice shelves that have no impact on sea level.

Credits: Wingham, D.J., Shepherd, A., Muir, A. and Marshall, G.J. 2006. Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 364: 1627-1635.

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The two Belgium Arctic Arc explorers - Alain Hubert (left) and Dixie Dansercoer (right). Their expedition began on 24 February 2007 in the Russian Arctic and will pass through the North Pole and continue southwards across the ice cap as far as the southernmost tip of Greenland. During their expedition the two explorers will be collecting data in support of ESA's CryoSat-2 mission.

Credits: Rolex

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Arctic Arc expedition 2007 across the vast ice-sheets in the Arctic.

Credits: International Polar Foundation (IPF)

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CryoSat measures the freeboard of floating sea ice.

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CryoSat is able to measure the freeboard (the height protruding above the water) of floating sea ice with its sensitive altimeter. From the freeboard, the ice thickness can be estimated.

Credits: ESA /AOES Medialab

ESA contribution to International Polar Year 2007-2008 Workshop on Antarctic sea-ice highlights need for CryoSat-2 mission Learning about Arctic Ocean circulation & ice thickness by gravity Climate Change students help CryoSat-2 Arctic campaign ESA confirms CryoSat recovery mission Polar explorer delivers rare snow-depth data to ESA for CryoSat validation

In depth

CryoSat-2