Delta II ICESat-2 Fairing Offload

Inside Building 836 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the payload fairing halves for the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta II rocket are lifted up from the base of their shipping container. NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) is scheduled to launch on the final ULA Delta II rocket later this year. ICESat-2 will measure the height of a changing Earth, one laser pulse at a time, 10,000 laser pulses a second. The satellite will carry a single instrument, the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System. ICESat-2 will help scientists investigate why, and how much our planet's frozen and icy areas, called the cryosphere, is changing in a warming climate.