1st orbit Ground station coverage

During the first orbit*, the most exciting thing will be the acquisition of the first CryoSat-2 telemetry data at ESOC through the various tracking stations.

Just after launch, the following stations will track CryoSat-2:

• +12min00 Malindi AOS (Acquisition of Signal)
• +21min36 Malindi LOS (Loss of Signal)
• +31min28 Troll AOS (Troll is located in Antarctica and co-located with the Troll research station)
  
• 43min28 Troll LOS
• 1h26min13 Svalbard AOS
• 1h26min31 Kiruna AOS (later on Science data will be acquire by Kiruna)
  
• ...
  

The separation, occurring at +16min28, should normally perfectly fit the Malindi coverage. So if everything goes as planned, less than 20 minutes after launch, our colleagues from ESOC, the ESA Control Center in Darmstadt, should be able to "listen" CS-2 for the first time...

*An orbit lasts approximately 1hour and 30 minutes