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Deputy Systems Engineer Phil Luers explains how the ATLAS transmitter and receiver subsystems come together to calculate the timing of photons, which, in turn, measure the elevation of ice.

Credits:
NASA/GSFC
Music: "Electric Works" by Philippe Lhommet, Koka Media; "From Source to Sea" by Christophe Lebled, Pierre Jacquot, Koka Media.

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The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) archives and distributes data from ICESat-2. Here is their intro video to the mission.

To deliver the instrument safely to the spacecraft for assembly and testing, the ATLAS team developed special procedures for packing, transporting and monitoring the sensitive hardware.

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Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

NASA cryospheric scientist Kelly Brunt and ICESat-2 Deputy Project Scientist Tom Neumann recall some of the highlights and challenges from the recent 88-South Antarctic Traverse.

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Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

ICESat-2 is an incredibly precise space laser that features the latest in NASA technology To measure ice heights, engineers have to take ICESat-2’s instrument ATLAS to the extreme – sometimes going big, sometimes going small, but always keeping it precise.

Download high resolution video here.

Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

An engineer checks ICESat-2's box structure, shortly after its arrival in a NASA clean room in May. Over the next two years, engineers and technicians will attach electronics, optics, lasers, a telescope and more to the box, testing its function at each step.

ICESat-2 will use six laser beams to measure the height of ice, as illustrated in this not-to-scale artist's rendering. This illustration is an outcome of the ICESat-2/SCAD Collaborative Student Project.

If ICESat-2 flew over a football field, it would take measurements within each yard line (green circles) – plus there's six of these green laser beams taking measurements at once! The first ICESat instrument only fired 40 times a second, and would have taken a measurement in each end zone (red circles).

#PhotonPhriday was a weekly look at how ICESat-2 measures Earth – from Antarctic dunes to the Bahamas to Greenland’s glaciers. Check out the profiles of our planet below!

5/31    Disko Bay, Greenland

6/7      Pine Island Glacier

6/14    Grand Canyon, AZ

6/21    Nantucket, MA

6/28    Jakobshavn, Greenland

7/4      Yosemite Valley, CA

7/12    Crane Glacier, Antarctica

7/19    Cape Canaveral, FL

7/26    Crater Lake, OR

8/2      Mount Everest, Nepal

8/9      West Central Greenland meltponds

8/16    Los Angeles, CA

8/23    Great Bahama Bank

8/30    Dunes in Morocco; Megadunes in Antarctica

9/6      Nares Strait, Greenland

9/13    Gilbert, AZ

9/20    Nordenskiold Glacier, Greenland

9/27    Sequoia National Park, CA

10/4    Lake Mead, NV

10/11  Denali, AK

10/18  Rhine, France

10/25  Norwegian fjords

10/31  Transylvanian Alps

11/8    French Polynesian atolls

11/15  Forests of Botswana

11/22  Smoke clouds from Sonoma Fires

11/29  Black Forest (Germany), Black Sea (Istanbul), Black Canyon (Gunnison, CO)

12/6    San Francisco, CA

12/13  Cascade Mountains, Washington

10/29/21 Photon 'Phright Day' Look at ghost islands

Overview video of the Cryo2Ice Mission created by the European Space Agency. The orbit of CryoSat-2 has been slightly changed to align periodically with ICESat-2. This will provide almost simultaneous radar and lidar measurements over the same ice.

ICESat-2's instrument will take measurements every 2.5 feet along its ground path - mapping dips and drop-offs in the ice. This illustration is an outcome of the ICESat-2/SCAD Collaborative Student Project.

With 3.03 trillion trees and 78,000 tree species on Earth, we strive to build and update the global inventory of tree height observations. Tracking how trees change over time, both in height and in the number of trees that make up an area, is a good indicator of an ecosystem’s health in an evolving climate. Through a combination of ICESat-2 and the GLOBE Program, we can compare space-based tree height and ground-based tree height observations.

Check out the "Before, During, and After the NASA GLOBE Trees Challenge 2022: A Revisit with the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership" blog from the GLOBE Program's GLOBE Observer HERE.

You can also see feature articles that stem from this blog at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and NASA Science.

The ATLAS box structure, with weights attached to simulate different components, is attached to a vibration table at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where it will be tested to see if it can withstand the jolts associated with a rocket launch.

Experience the sounds and senses of the remote polar regions through NASA’s Sea Ice Scientist in the Field, Dr. Rachel Tilling. This recording is a complement to NASA’s latest tactile book: “Earth: A Tactile View of the Blue Marble.”

Official ICESat-2 mission patch logo.

In Photon Jump, a 3-minute short animation, a brave photon of light named Pho must travel from a NASA spacecraft down to Earth and back again to help complete a crucial science mission. The animation was created by the ICESat-2/SCAD Collaborative Student Project involving students and faculty from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

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ICESat-2 will provide scientists with height measurements that create a global portrait of Earth’s third dimension, gathering data that can precisely track changes of terrain including glaciers, sea ice, forests and more.

Download full resolution video here.

Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

ICESat-2 is an incredibly precise space laser that features the latest in NASA technology To measure ice heights, engineers have to take ICESat-2’s instrument ATLAS to the extreme – sometimes going big, sometimes going small, but always keeping it precise.

Download high resolution video here.

Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

Pho, a plucky bright green photon of light, must travel from a NASA spacecraft down to Earth and back again to help complete a crucial science mission in this educational short film.

Download high resolution video here

A view of the Arctic Ocean with ICESat-2 monthly average sea ice thickness data from November 2018 to April 2021. Low values are depicted in light blue, and higher values (5 meters) are depicted in magenta.

Opto-Mechanical Engineer Tyler Evans illustrates how the laser is transmitted from the ATLAS instrument on the ICESat-2 spacecraft.

Video Credit: NASA/GSFC

Download high resolution video here

ICESat-2 will measure the height of ice and its features, such as this glacial melt pond photographed July 16, 2014, over Alaska.

To develop the computer programs that will crunch the raw data gathered by ICESat-2, the mission flew a series of campaigns with the MABEL instrument, which gathers similar information.