Cryosat launched from Baikanur Cosmodrome

On Thursday 8 April, the European Space Agency launched its Cryosat satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. European scientists expressed “immense relief” yesterday when a Russian rocket put their Cryosat-2 satellite into a perfect Earth orbit after a catastrophic failure of the previous attempt. The €140m mission will monitor changes in the polar ice caps. It is a duplicate of a 2005 mission that failed when the rocket’s second stage failed and the satellite crashed into the Indian Ocean.

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