ICESat science campaign number 11 (November 2006)

Our ICESat science campaign number 11 successfully started on October 25th. The laser instrument onboard the Ice, Land, and Cloud Elevation Satellite or ICESat was turned on and has been running very smoothly. ICESat has been operated by our mission operations team at LASP since 2003 and has been producing phenomenal science. The primary mission is to determine if the ice sheets at Earth’s poles are growing or shrinking. The satellite’s instrument, the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS), bounces laser pulses off the surface and measures how long it takes to return to the satellite. This is one demanding spacecraft we operate! With the help of GPS receivers onboard, our operators must carefully adjust the spacecraft’s orbit and altitude so the instrument looks repeatedly at the same ground track. In this way, changes in the height of the ice’s surface can be accurately measured by comparing the measurements from previous campaigns.

During one of the orbits a team of Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), scientists used a video camera to capture an image of the green light from the laser. They reported that they saw the green light. It was quite obvious and appeared like a very bright green star. The science campaigns only run for 33 days three times a year due to issues with the laser systems onboard the spacecraft. This particular campaign runs through November 27th. Thanks to the combined efforts of LASP, Ball Aerospace (who built the spacecraft), the GLAS instrument team at GSFC, and the GSFC scientists and program management, we continue to produce outstanding science with ICESat.