Europe’s CryoSat satellite has failed in its mission to collect data on ice at the Earth’s poles. Six minutes after being launched by a Russian rocket, the satellite ceased communication with the control center, preventing the second stage of the rocket from separating.
This $170 million satellite fell into the Arctic Ocean just 90 minutes after liftoff from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia last Saturday. It never completed its first orbit around the Earth.
CryoSat was intended to map ice in the polar regions and provide more accurate data for studying the phenomenon of global warming.
