UC San Diego glaciologist Helen Fricker was a Ph.D. student when she started using a measurement technique called altimetry. It’s done using a satellite orbiting the earth.
“On board is a laser. It's a bit like a laser pointer,” she said. “And it is sending a laser pulse from the satellite to the ground and back and measuring how long it takes.”
Scientists use those measurements to figure out the height of glaciers and sea ice.
Altimetry is like a metal detector, Fricker said. It tells you where to take a closer look.
“You use the satellites to kind of find the, ‘Bing, bing, bing, flashing red, come and look at me, I'm changing,’” she said. “And then you go in with the fieldwork and figure out why.”
NASA has selected Fricker and her team for a new laser altimetry mission. It’s called Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer, or EDGE.
Fricker has worked on NASA satellite missions before. She leads the science team for the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite 2, or ICESat-2, which launched in 2018.
EDGE will be even more accurate than previous tools, she said. Plus, it doesn’t just measure ice.
“It's for terrestrial ecosystems as well. So forests, and woody ecosystems,” she said. “This is actually a kind of two-in-one mission.”
Fricker said this will help scientists track two of the earth’s vital signs: how much carbon is stored in forests and how much ice there is.
“If we can track and monitor these key signs of Earth, and are we going close to these tipping points, it's very important,” she said. “We need to know where we're headed so that we can navigate through this time of unprecedented change.”
Fricker and her team first started working on their proposal in 2021. They highlighted the economic benefits of EDGE, like monitoring changing conditions in commercial ship routes.
“It was actually quite refreshing to think about it in a different way, because the instrument is so needed in many ways and needed for so many industries,” she said.
After years of meetings, presentations and questions, she got the call from NASA while on a walk last Thursday.
“I actually saw a penny on the ground right before they called,” she said. “Not that I'm superstitious, but I sort of am.”
Now, work can get started on building the instrument. The spacecraft will be about the size of an SUV, Fricker said. It will launch from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.
“So we'll see from here,” she said, looking out her office window. “Well, I won't be here. I'll be there. But people will be able to see it from here.”
NASA will review the mission’s progress in 2027. If approved, the launch could happen in 2030.
