Talk:ICESat-2

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A news item involving ICESat-2 was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 20 September 2018.

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Math issue with radiometry?

Text says the instrument sends 2e10 photons and gets 12 photons back. However, for the orbit altitude and mirror size in the article, a Lambertian reflector on the ground would require about 1000 times as many photons. Also, 1e10 photons per pulse @ 10 kHz for six lasers is only 2 W total - an unlikely small amount of power. Methinks the "20 trillion" is wrong. The original web reference no longer exists. 128.149.241.54 (talk) 20:34, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

reference moved to https://icesat-2.gsfc.nasa.gov/space-lasers 128.149.241.54 (talk) 20:57, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dymu4947, Britton.Sears. Peer reviewers: Mifi3387.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 January 2019 and 3 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Emilykelman.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:46, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2020 and 14 March 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): GeoColts, Racheal Burger, Jingyi Liang, Miwa5437.

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Delayed Launch

Hi, what do you guys think about adding a section about the delayed launch of IceSAT-2? It has been delayed past the original scheduled launch and has run significantly overbudget. There doesn't seem to be anything here on that part of the mission's story. Dymu4947 (talk) 03:31, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dymu4947, if you can create a history section with some background on the mission (with citations), go for it. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:07, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

More project development history

Why no mention that the satellite was designed and built by Northrop Grumman in Gilbert, Arizona?

To me, that's an important piece of the "Project development." 2600:8800:785:1300:C23F:D5FF:FEC4:D51D (talk) 09:43, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The satellite was not built by NG, but by Orbital Sciences (Orbital ATK), which was well-after bought by NG. Regardless, I noted its construction on the page. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:05, 15 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What isn't clear from the article—or articles, including ICESat(-1)—is why it took so long for a follow-up project to come about. Considering the fact that despite being widely touted as "terminal instrument failure", even the initial mission duration was _surpassed_ by two years, and yet it _still_ took almost another decade until a successor instrument could be launched. It should have been clear at least _two years before_ IS1 "failed" that there was a need for a successor, shouldn't it? And how about a follow-up mission to ICESat-2? In the final production phase, I'd hope? IS2 is three years over its planned lifetime at the time of writing...