The Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) will add the third dimension to our study of Earth.
ICESat-2 will measure the height of ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice with an unprecedented level of precision and detail.
To do this, ICESat-2 will fly the most advanced laser altimeter NASA has ever launched.
The laser fires 10,000 pulses of light a second.
The instrument measures the time of flight of individual photons, down to Earth and back, within a billionth of a second.
With this new technology, ICESat-2 will track annual ice sheet change to a fraction of a centimeter.
Measuring the height of our polar regions will reveal ice mass changes
and help us forecast how these changes will impact sea level and climate beyond the poles.