The launch next week of a European satellite designed to monitor the response of icesheets to climate change has been delayed by a technical worry, the European Space Agency.
CryoSat-2 had been scheduled to be launched from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan next Thursday. The operation has been delayed due to a concern related to the second stage steering engine of the Dnepr launcher.
CryoSat-2 is a replica of a first satellite which was lost through a second-stage launch failure in October 2005 that used a modified Russian SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missile.
The Dnepr is a three-stage derivation of an SS-18 ICBM.
The 700-kilo satellite carries an all-weather microwave radar altimeter designed to measure changes in the thickness of floating sea ice and land ice sheets to within one centimetre.
It will be the third of ESA’s "Earth Explorer" satellites.
The others are GOCE, launched in March 2009 to monitor ocean circulation and SMOS, launched in November 2009 to monitor soil moisture and ocean salinity.
