http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cryosat/index.html


http://www.esa.int/esaLP/LPcryosat.html

ESA\'s ice mission CryoSat

The question of whether global climate change is causing the polar ice caps to shrink is one of the most hotly debated environmental issues we currently face. By monitoring precise changes in the thickness of the polar ice sheets and floating sea ice, ESA\'s CryoSat mission aims to provide the answer this question. Due for launch on 8 October 2005, CryoSat is the first Earth Explorer mission to be realised within ESA\'s Living Planet Programme.

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Linux Users Everywhere @ BOINC

Per BBC World Service report, it failed -- breaking apart before reaching orbit and falling into the sea. That, according to Russian engineers.

Edit: BBC News article, apparently a bit older than the radio report, <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4319596.stm\">here.</a>

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

That\'s really bad :-/


CryoSat Mission lost due to launch failure

8 October 2005
Today at 21.00 CEST Mr Yuri Bakhvalov, First Deputy Director General of the Khrunichev Space Centre on behalf of the Russian State Commission officially confirmed that the launch of CryoSat ended in a failure due to an anomaly in the launch sequence and expressed his regret to ESA and all partners involved.

Preliminary analysis of the telemetry data indicates that the first stage performed nominally. The second stage performed nominally until main engine cut-off was to occur. Due to a missing command from the onboard flight control system the main engine continued to operate until depletion of the remaining fuel.

As a consequence, the separation of the second stage from upper stage did not occur. Thus, the combined stack of the two stages and the CryoSat satellite fell into the nominal drop zone north of Greenland close to the North Pole into high seas with no consequences to populated areas.

An investigating commission by the Russian State authorities has been established to further analyze the reasons for the failure, results are expected within the next weeks. This commission will work in close cooperation with a failure investigation board consisting of Eurockot, ESA and Khrunichev representatives.

This information is released at the same time by Eurockot and ESA

Yes, a sad story :-(

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Heard an interview with the UK project leader on the radio this morning. Subject to finance ESA are going to try again, but he reckons it\'ll take at least 3 years :(

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"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I think the Russians had another launch failure a few days earlier after many successful launches.

I thought that previously, ESA usually carried out high-latitude launches in Kiruna.

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Just bumping this thread, as a replacement satellite was lofted in 2010. Since then, data has been accumulating. An article from May 2016 notes a need for crunching it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36272728

If it were possible for the Cryosat data to be served via BOINC, I would be delighted to assist.

That would be very worthwhile, especially if advanced CPU techniques (AVX2, etc.) or GPUs could be used.