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Illustration of NASA's ICESat-2 satellite artist in orbit. The launch of the satellite is scheduled for September 15, 2018, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Credit: NASA
A NASA spacecraft, powered by laser and monitoring the ice, was allowed to take off.
The space agency's ICESat-2 (Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2) satellite, which will measure sea ice and sea ice all over the world with unprecedented accuracy, has successfully passed this 13th .
For example, IceSat-2 is on track to launch into Earth orbit on Saturday morning (15 September) on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The launch window of about 2.5 hours opens at 8:46 am EDT (12:46 GMT; local California time, 5:46 am). You can watch the takeoff here at Space.com when the time comes, courtesy of NASA. [Images of Melt: Earth’s Vanishing Ice]
ICESat-2 has a single instrument called the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), which has a laser divided into six green beams. ATLAS will launch 10,000 pulses every second, then measure the time it takes for that light to come back after bouncing off the ice, tree tops, and other landscape features. (Only a tiny fraction of ATLAS photons will be sent back directly to the instrument, of course.)
By zooming in on the Earth, ATLAS will perform such measurements every 28 inches (71 centimeters) along the surface below, collecting huge amounts of incredibly accurate data. Indeed, these observations will allow the mission scientists to track annual height changes in the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica to less than 4 millimeters (0.16 inches), according to NASA officials.
ICESat-2 will help researchers monitor how global warming is affecting the coldest places on the planet. Mission measurements over forest countries will also be of interest to a large number of people, from land ecologists to climate scientists, the team members said.
"From the space point of view, we will have an overall measure of tree height," said Lori Magruder of the University of Texas at Austin, head of the ICESat-2 scientific definition team.
"This allows us to create a global estimate of biomass," she added. "Biomass is important because it helps to better understand the carbon cycle and its contribution to our environment and climate."
ICESat-2 s inscribed in the lineage of the first ICESat, which studied the planet from 2003 to 2009. But the new spacecraft, designed to operate for at least three years, will have a much sharper look than its predecessor. The ICESat single-beam laser instrument, called the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS), only triggered 40 pulses per second and took measurements every 170 meters (560 feet) of ground track.
"For comparison, if both instruments were taking action on a football field, GLAS would have collected data points outside the two end zones, but the actions taken by ICESat-2 mission description.
Saturday's launch, which will also focus on four small space cubes, will be the last for the venerable Delta II. The rocket debuted in February 1989 and has 154 missions to its credit, of which the last 99 have been successful.
The 128-foot Delta II has launched many payloads over the years, including NASA's Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes, the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, the Phoenix Mars undercarriage and the Dawn spacecraft. currently orbiting the dwarf planet. Ceres
"The Delta II vehicle has probably touched the lives of everyone in America thanks to the technology it has put in place in 30 years," said Scott Messer, NASA's Program Manager at ULA. the press conference. "This has been a very important part of the history of space and a very important part of everyone's life in America."
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @ michaeldwall and Google+. follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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