The CRISTALair team in the Norlandair hangar, in Akureyri. © CRISTALair.
From 14 to 20 September, the CRISTALair instrument — the airborne demonstrator for the Copernicus CRISTAL mission that ESA is developing and will operate for the EU Copernicus programme — was successfully tested during a Functional Flight Campaign over Iceland and Greenland. The sensor acquired data over sea ice, land ice, and open ocean, as well as over corner reflectors to support instrument validation. Early results confirm the instrument’s successful performance.
The campaign, led by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), was conducted using a Twin Otter aircraft operated by Norlandair. Activities included the instrument integration in Akureyri followed by a local flight over corner reflectors, ocean flights along the Eastern Greenland coast, sea ice flights over the Wandell Sea from Station Nord, and land ice flights over the Greenland ice sheet.
The CRISTALair instrument has been manufactured by MetaSensing, an Italian company specialised in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology. Its processors have been developed by isardSAT, who is leading the project and currently carrying out the analysis of the campaign data retrieved by the sensor.
CRISTALair: an airborne demonstrator for the CRISTAL mission
Emulating the payload of the future CRISTAL satellite, the CRISTALair instrument features a dual-frequency radar altimeter, which acquires simultaneously data in Ku and Ka bands. This innovative configuration will unable unprecedented accuracy in measuring and monitoring sea-ice thickness, overlying snow depth and ice-sheet elevations. CRISTALair also integrates an airborne laser scanner, a colour-infrared camera, and ancillary equipment to ensure precise positioning and orientation of the interferometer.
The Functional Flight Campaign tested the CRISTALair sensor over corner reflectors (left) and sea ice (right), among others. © CRISTALair.
Following on from previous missions such as ESA’s Earth Explorer CryoSat mission, CRISTAL will ensure the long-term continuation of radar altimetry ice elevation and topographic change records, furnishing crucial information for climate research, sea-level rise analysis, and assess operational applications in ice-covered regions. The measurements collected by CRISTALair in upcoming flight campaigns will provide essential insights that will help bridge the gap between CryoSat-2 and CRISTAL operations and deliver valuable in-situ data for CRISTAL preparation activities.
The Twin Otter aircraft that carried the CRISTALair sensor during the Functional Flight Campaign © Christoph Robeet and Julien Vattant, EU.
