NSIDC distributes 15 Level-1 and Level-2 data products from the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) instrument that was aboard the NASA Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation (ICESat) satellite. Launched on 12 January 2003, after seven years in orbit and 18 laser-operations campaigns, the ICESat's science mission ended due to the failure of its primary instrument.

The main objective of the GLAS instrument was to measure ice sheet elevations and changes in elevation through time. Secondary objectives included measurement of cloud and aerosol height profiles, land elevation and vegetation cover, and sea ice thickness.

To navigate this Web site, use the menu to the left. For news about the latest happenings with ICESat/GLAS data, see the News page. For more information about GLAS data that NSIDC provides, see the Data Sets page which lists individual products that NSIDC distributes. See the Current Release Schedule page for a listing of the most current version of GLAS data available; and for a detailed description of the current data release, see the Description of Current Data Release page.