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ESA CryoSat-2 Program Underway After Successful Launch

By Staff Writer | April 12, 2010

      [Satellite TODAY 04-12-10] The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched the CrySat-2 ice research satellite on a Dnepr rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the agency announced April 8.
          CryoSat-2 will be placed into a polar orbit to take over for the original CryoSat satellite, which was lost in 2005 in a launch failure. The mission objectives remain the same. CryoSat-2 aims to measure changes in the thickness of the vast ice sheets that overlie Antarctica and Greenland, as well as variations in the thickness of the relatively thin ice floating in the polar oceans. The CryoSat-2 is the third Earth Explorer satellite put into orbit by ESA in the past year.
          The total cost of the project is estimated to be 140 million euros ($187 million), with CyroSat-2’s radar system accounting for roughly half of the cost.

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