MOSCOW, October 8 (RIA Novosti) - A Rokot booster will launch the Cryosat satellite of the European Space Agency launch on Saturday at 7.02 p.m. Moscow time from the Plesetsk space center to study the Earth's ice fields, a spokesman for the Russian Space Forces news service said.
The Cryosat satellite, built by EADS Astrium, will be put into a polar 720-km orbit where it will conduct high-precision measurements of the depth and length of the Antarctic ice cover, as well as the ice fields in Greenland, Iceland, subpolar oceanic zones, and mountain glacier regions.
Cryosat instruments will monitor changes in the earth's environment and the level of the world's oceans throughout its three-and-a-half-year mission.
The upcoming launch is seventh for the Rokot booster.
In August 2005, a Rokot rocket launched the earth remote sensing satellite Monitor-E from the Plesetsk-26 space center.
Monitor-E is designed for earth remote sensing in the interest of agriculture and forestry, environmental monitoring, geological mapping, the search for mineral resources, monitoring and assessment of emergencies, and 1:50000 scale mapping.
