Operation IceBridge

The program, which ran from 2009 to 2019, employed various aircraft equipped with advanced instruments to measure ice elevation, thickness, and underlying bedrock topography.

IceBridge played a crucial role in discovering the longest canyon on Earth beneath the Greenland ice sheet.

ICESat was retired in 2009 due to a technical malfunction, leaving NASA without a satellite dedicated to ice observance.

Southern Hemisphere flights began during the first Austral Spring campaign in October 2009, based out of Punta Arenas, Chile.

To date there have been Spring campaigns in the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as flights monitoring summer melt on Alaskan glaciers every year since 2009.

IceBridge flights began in March 2009 using a Lockheed P-3 Orion in the Arctic, and were followed later that year by a Douglas DC-8 in the Antarctic.

By combining this timing data with information about the aircraft's position and attitude, researchers can calculate ice elevation.

LVIS was created by scientists at the Laser Remote Sensing Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The DMS instrument is a downward-facing digital camera that captures multiple individual frames that are combined into image mosaics using computer software.

Density and magnetic properties can be used to infer bedrock type, which is helpful for determining sub-ice basal conditions.

[2] In August 2013 the discovery of the longest canyon on Earth under the Greenland ice sheet was reported, based on an analysis of data from Operation IceBridge.