No description available.
Launch Date
4/8/2010
Launch Site
GIK-5 LC109/95
,
Launch Vehicle
Dnepr (R-36 Family)
SIRAL-2 is a Ku-band only altimeter on ESA’s CryoSat-2 Earth Explorer mission.
On February 24, 2006, the European Space Agency received approval from its Member States to build and launch the CryoSat-2 recovery mission.
On July 1, 2010, CryoSat-2 had been in orbit for almost three months and was reported to be in excellent health by participants at the Living Planet Symposium.
As ESA prepared for CryoSat-2's end-of-year 2009 launch, CryoSat-2's associated ground segment was declared ready.
On May 9, 2008, an international field campaign on the Greenland ice sheet was conducted as the last campaign prior to the CryoSat-2 launch to ensure data accuracy for the mission.
CryoSat-2 was launched on April 8, 2010.
On April 8, 2010, CryoSat-2 delivered its first data just hours after ground controllers switched on the satellite's radar instrument for the first time.
On July 20, 2010, the first CryoSat-2 data were released to selected scientists for fine-tuning.
On April 28, 2006, six students from the Climate Change College joined the ESA CryoSat validation experiment on the Greenland ice sheet to participate in field experiments preparing for the CryoSat-2 mission.
ESA Bulletin 141 (8 February 2010) showed CryoSat-2 as complete and on schedule for launch later in February 2010.