For eleven years from 2009 through 2019, the planes of NASA’s Operation IceBridge flew above the Arctic, Antarctic and Alaska, gathering data on the height, depth, thickness, flow and change of sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets.
Designed to collect data during the years between NASA’s two Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellites, ICESat and ICESat-2, IceBridge made its final polar flight in November 2019, one year after ICESat-2’s successful launch.
As the team and planes move on to their next assignments, the scientists and engineers reflected on a decade of IceBridge’s most significant accomplishments.
NASA’s first Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) monitored ice, clouds, atmospheric particles and vegetation globally beginning in 2003. As ICESat neared the end of its life, NASA made plans to keep measuring ice elevation with aircraft until ICESat-2’s launch. ICESat finished its service in August 2009, and IceBridge took over land and sea ice measurements for the next decade.
Continue reading at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Image via NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
