It was spit out, and kicked away 23 April 2010
Taking advantage of NASA's 'Operation Ice Bridge' campaign, measurements of Arctic sea ice have been made from an aircraft flying directly under CryoSat-2's orbital path. These measurements offer an early opportunity to check the quality of the newly launched CryoSat-2 satellite data over sea ice.
Following the launch of ESA's CryoSat-2 ice mission 8 April, the satellite's Synthetic Aperture Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL) was switched on and delivered its first radar echo data on 11 April. Although the mission still has to go through a six-month commissioning phase before it delivers calibrated and validated data to the scientific community, ESA is very pleased with the quality of data so far.
DC-8 flightpath from Thule
04.22.10
Out From Thule, For Now
Post-storm snow removal in Thule, Greenland, created a "clear" runway for the successful sea ice flight on April 19. Credit: NASA/Jim Yungel
...22 November 2010
Marking the beginning of its operational life, ESA's CryoSat ice mission was formally transferred from Project Manager Richard Francis (right) to the Mission Manager Tommaso Parrinello (left) on 19 November 2010 in the presence of ESA's Director of Earth Observation Programmes Volker Liebig (centre).
Credits: ESA
With the commissioning of ESA's CryoSat now complete, the mission has been officially transferred to the operations team. This milestone marks the beginning of the satellite’s operational life delivering ice-thickness data to understand the impact of climate change on the polar environment.
The handover ceremony took place on 19 November at ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands, where the responsibility for the mission passed from CryoSat-2's Project Manager, Richard Francis, to the Mission Manager, Tommaso Parrinello.
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