The ice, cloud, and land elevation satellite-2 — Overview, science, and applications

The Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite - 2 (ICESat-2) was designed and built by NASA. It is planned to launch in September of 2018 with a designed mission life of 3 years to measure the elevation changes of the earth's land and ice masses. This paper describes the mission overview and the mission systems; outlines how the laser altimeter instrument works; summarizes the orbit, and discusses the expected science results and potential applications.