[4] Its primary objective is to measure the thinning of Arctic sea ice, but has applications to other regions and scientific purposes, such as Antarctica and oceanography.

[6] CryoSat-2 was successfully launched five years later in 2010, with upgraded software aiming to measure changes in ice thickness to an accuracy of ~10% of the expected interannual variation.

[17][18] Due to the importance of the CryoSat mission for understanding global warming and reductions in polar ice caps, a replacement satellite was proposed.

[29] Furthermore, the mission aims to monitor ice thickness changes in Antarctica and Greenland, to determine their contribution to sea level rise.

It departed Munich Franz Josef Strauss Airport aboard an Antonov An-124 aircraft on 12 January,[36] and arrived at Baikonur the next day.

[40] It was determined that the ferrite had come from an absorption load installed deep inside the antenna, which was intended to improve its performance.

Some ferrite (the remaining stump of this load) was removed from inside the base of the antenna in order to prevent any further debris falling into the waveguide.

[43] Rollout occurred on 15 February, and the next day the satellite was activated in order to test its systems following integration onto the rocket.

The first signals from the satellite were detected by a ground station at the Broglio Space Centre in Malindi, Kenya, seventeen minutes after launch.

[49] The primary payload onboard CryoSat-2 is the SAR Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL), operating in the Ku-band (13.6 GHz).

[50] Unlike the original CryoSat, two SIRAL instruments are installed aboard CryoSat-2, with one serving as a backup in case the other fails.

[51] In SAR mode, SIRAL emits a burst of 64 pulses, separated into narrow along-track beams by exploiting the Doppler Effect.

[10] Each strip is ~250 m wide, and the interval between bursts means each ground location is measured multiple times, improving accuracy.

[53] An array of retroreflectors are also carried aboard the spacecraft, and allow measurements to be made from the ground to verify the orbital data provided by DORIS.

[54] Launch and Early Orbit Phase operations were completed in the morning of 11 April 2010, and SIRAL was activated later the same day.

[57] Initial data on ice thickness was presented by the mission's Lead Investigator, Duncan Wingham, at the 2010 Living Planet Symposium on 1 July.

[61] Sea ice thickness estimates have been produced by the Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling, the Alfred Wegener Institute (Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research), and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Center.

[10][62][52][63] Arctic sea ice thickness data are available to view and download from the Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling.

[8] In 2022, a record of Arctic summer sea ice was generated using a neural network, but it was recognised that more work must be done to resolve sources of uncertainty in the estimates.

For sea ice, which moves as it is blown by the wind, it was also necessary to develop techniques which could give consistent results when measured from platforms travelling at different speed (scientists on the surface, helicopter-towed sounders, aircraft-borne radars and CryoSat itself).

A number of campaigns were performed under a programme called CRYOVEX[28] which aimed to address each of the identified areas of uncertainty.

Experiments were conducted in Antarctica to determine how snow could affect its readings, and to provide data for calibrating the satellite.

[73] Additional snow measurements were provided by the Arctic Arc Expedition, and the Alfred Wegener Institute's Airborne Synthetic Aperture and Interferometric Radar Altimeter System (ASIRAS) instrument, mounted aboard a Dornier 228 aircraft.