Polar Ice Satellite Team Desperate To Replace Bird Lost At Launching - BBC

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Duncan Wingham told BBC News the data the satellite was seeking on the state of the Earth's ice cover was essential to our understanding of climate change. "You have to see in context," he said. "There is a cost in not knowing what is going on and in the end that's an even larger cost."

Cryosat fell into the Arctic Ocean shortly after Saturday's blast-off. It was riding atop a Rockot vehicle from Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. Early investigations indicate a failure with the onboard flight-control system.

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"It's a blow; there's no way of avoiding it, it's a big disappointment," Professor Wingham said. "Three years is about the minimum length of time needed to put a replacement mission together." The University College London researcher first proposed the Cryosat mission in 1998.

It was the first of the European Space Agency's Earth Explorer missions - relatively low-cost projects designed to obtain quick answers to important environmental questions. In Cryosat's case, it would have provided the best data yet on ice extent and volume. This would have given scientists a definitive picture of the rate of thinning seen in Arctic sea ice and enabled them to improve computer models of climate change.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4326386.stm