The instrument, called ‘Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2’ (ICESat-2), will measure the average annual change of land ice covering Greenland and Antarctica to within the width of a pencil, capturing 60,000 measurements every second. “Godspeed, Delta II,” said a member of the launch team at the conclusion of the CubeSat deployments, “and thank you for your almost 30 years of unparalleled excellence.”

Following the successful flight, United Launch Alliance issued a statement that the last (unflown) Delta II rocket would be displayed at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, joining a number other retired launch vehicles at the tourist destination and serving to remind viewers of its many accomplishments. The satellite will be equipped with an Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), which will send 10,000 laser pulses per second to Earth to measure the height of ice sheets, glaciers, forests and bodies of water. “We are really looking forward to making those data available to the science community as quickly as possible so we can begin to explore what ICESat-2 can tell us about our complex home planet.”

The high-resolution data will document changes in the Earth’s polar ice caps, improve forecasts of sea level rise bolstered by ice sheet melt in Greenland and Antarctica, and help scientists understand the mechanisms that are decreasing floating ice and assess how that sea ice loss affects the ocean and atmosphere. ICESat-2 continues the record of ice height measurements started by NASA’s original ICESat mission, which operated from 2003 to 2009, that were continued by the agency’s annual Operation IceBridge airborne flights over the Arctic and Antarctic, which began in 2009.
The United Launch Alliance successfully launches NASA's ICESat-2 satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The satellite will provide more precise information on Earth's polar ice caps. It is the final mission for the Delta II rocket.