Hispanic Heritage Month - Oct 15
ICESat's Lasers Measure Ice, Clouds and Land Elevations

Artist concept of GLAS instrument

NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) has resumed measure-
ments of the Earth's polar ice sheets, clouds, mountains and forests with the second of its three lasers. Crisscrossing the globe at nearly 17,000 miles per hour, this new space mission is providing data with unprecedented accuracy on the critical third dimension of the Earth, its vertical characteristics.

"The first set of laser measurements is revealing features of the polar ice sheets with details never seen before, and is detecting dust storms, cloud heights, tree heights and smoke from forest fires in new and exciting ways," said Jay Zwally, ICESat project scientist at Goddard.

The principal mission of ICESat is to measure the surface elevation of the large ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland. Measurements of elevation-change over time will show whether the ice sheets are melting or growing as the Earth's climate undergoes natural and human-induced changes.

The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) instrument on ICESat sends short pulses of green and infrared light though the sky 40 times a second, all over the globe, and collects the reflected laser light in a one-meter telescope. The elevation of the Earth's surface and the heights of clouds
and aerosols in the atmosphere are calculated from both precise measurements of the travel time of the laser pulses, and ancillary measurements of the satellite's orbit and instrument orientation. This marks the first time any satellite has made vertical measurements of the Earth through the use of an onboard light source.

For more the GLAS instrument, go to:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/
2003/0920icesatfirst.html

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NASA 's Mission:
*To understand and protect our home planet
*To explore the Universe and search for life
*To inspire the next generation of explorers
…as only NASA can

For a further details of the NASA mission, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/bios/vision.html

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In observance and in celebration marking a century of flight in 2003, Goddard News features a historical NASA flight tidbit. This Month in History: On October 11, 1958 the first NASA launch was Poineer 1

Visit the NASA Glenn Centennial Website at: http://centennial.grc.nasa.gov for information about the Inventing Flight celebration. For more information on the Centennial of Flight celebration events, go to: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/