Overview

NASA’s ICESat mission helps scientists understand how changes in the Earth’s atmosphere and climate affect polar ice masses and global sea level. ICESat quantifies ice sheet mass balance and also measures the distribution of clouds and aerosols, as well as surveying land topography, sea ice, and vegetation cover.

Our Role

NASA selected Ball Aerospace to build the 2,108-pound ICESat spacecraft bus under its Rapid Spacecraft Development program. The bus is based on the Ball Aerospace Commercial Platform 2000 (BCP 2000). The BCP 2000, also used for the QuikSCAT mission, has demonstrated its exceptional capabilities in attitude control accuracy, real-time attitude knowledge precision and spacecraft jitter control.

The University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) has provided mission operations and flight dynamics for ICESat. The Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project at Goddard Space Flight Center has provided space and ground network support.

Program Information

ICESat employs the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System to measure changes in the thickness of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. ICESat measures the elevations of clouds and land while traveling at 17,000 miles/hour from pole to pole and circling the Earth once every 100 minutes.

ICESat also gauges the vertical structure of clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere; maps the topography of land surfaces; and measures the roughness, reflectivity, vegetation heights, snow cover, and sea-ice surface characteristics.

As the first-of-its-kind benchmark Earth Observing System (EOS) mission, ICESat was designed to spend five years in orbit detecting changes in the amount of water stored in the polar deep freeze – changes which are major factors in global sea level change.

Launched Jan. 12, 2003, ICESat was designed for a three-year lifetime with a five-year goal. In 2008, the mission extended its operation to at least 2010.

ICESat’s laser altimeter measures changes in ice thickness over millions of locations in Greenland and Antarctica, helping fill fundamental gaps in sea level forecasting.

NASA’s ICESat mission enables scientists to study the Earth’s climate, and ultimately, predict how ice sheets and sea level will respond to future climate change.