User:Dymu4947/sandbox

Project Development
ICESat-2 is intended to be a follow-up to the original ICESat mission, which was decommissioned in 2010. When the project entered its first phase in 2010, it was expected to be ready for launch as soon as 2015. In December 2012, NASA reported that they expected the project to launch in 2016. In the following years, technical issues with the mission's only onboard sensor, ATLAS, delayed the mission further, pushing the expected launch back from late 2016 to May 2017. In July 2014, NASA submitted a report to Congress detailing the reasons for the delay and a projected budget overrun, as is required by law for NASA projects which spend at least 15% over budget. In order to finance the budget overrun, NASA has diverted funds from other planned satellite missions, such as the Pre-Aerosol, Clouds, and Ocean Ecosystem satellite (PACE). The official launch date is now scheduled for September 2018, and no further delays are expected. To maintain data continuity in the interim between the decommissioning of ICESat and the launch of ICESat-2, NASA's airborne Operation IceBridge mission has continued to collect topography data using its onboard ATM lidar sensor.