’Ice Explorer’ Ready for Launch
The European space agency’s mission to assess the state of the world’s ice cover is likely to launch in February. The Cryosat-2 spacecraft will go into orbit on a Dnepr rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the agency has announced.
The satellite is a rebuild of the mission that was destroyed in 2005 when its launcher failed just minutes into its flight. Cryosat-2’s radar instrument will make detailed maps of the ice that covers both sea and land at the poles. Data from other satellites has already indicated that some of this cover is diminishing at a rapid rate in response to climate change, with the biggest melting occurring in the Arctic.
The completed Cryosat-2 is undergoing final checks here at the IABG technical centre in Ottobrunn near Munich, Germany, a test facility used by satellite manufacturers. It was hoped Cryosat. 2 could launch in December, lint the flight has been delayed now until next year. Esa said there was a queue of missions waiting for a ride on the Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr rockel.
"Yes, it’s frustrating, but that’s how it is," conceded Volker Liebig, Esa’s director of Earth observation programmes. "On the other hand it gives us a little bit more lime to [train and prepare the ground team],which means when we do get into orbit we’ll be ready to start operations rapidly because of all the work we’ve done in advance,"
Mission managers are targeting 28 February for a launch. The inability of the agency to loft its satellites at a time of its choosing should become less of a problem when it has access to its new Vega rocket.
Vega, which will operate out of Europe’s Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, has been designed specifically to carry small institutional payloads such as Cryosat to orbit. However, the rocket is not expected to enter into service until the middle of next year.
Cryosat-2 is part of Esa’s Earth Explorer programme—seven spacecraft that will do innovative science in obtaining data on issees of pressing environmental concern. The first in the series, Goce (Gravity Field and Steady—State Ocean Circulation), was launched in March.
According to the passage, what is Volker Liebig’s view about the delay in launch