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ICESAT
ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite) is the benchmark Earth Observing System (EOS) mission for measuring ice sheet mass balance, cloud and aerosol heights, as well as land topography and vegetation characteristics. The ICESat mission will provide multi-year elevation data needed to determine ice sheet mass balance as well as cloud property information, especially for stratospheric clouds common over polar areas. It will also provide topography and vegetation data around the globe, in addition to the polar-specific coverage over the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. NASA selected Ball Aerospace to provide its Ball Commercial Platform 2000 (BCP 2000) spacecraft bus for the laser altimetry mission. In cooperation with Colorado University/ Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), Ball Aerospace will provide the mission operations for ICESat. This includes a Mission Operations Center, a Flight Operations Team, and a Flight Dynamics System, all based on systems currently supporting other similar missions. ICESat data will be archived and distributed by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) is the sole instrument on the ICESat flight. ICESat was successfully launched on January 12, 2003. For more information on ICESat, see: "http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/" For more information on the Earth Observing System (EOS), see: "http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/"