Operation IceBridge

The NASA DC-8 sits on the Punta Arenas airport ramp during pre-flight procedures during the 2012 Antarctic campaign
Bruckner and Heim Gletschers pouring into Johan Petersens Fjord in eastern coastal Greenland. Taken from the NASA HU-25C Falcon aircraft, September 2016.

Operation IceBridge (OIB) was a NASA mission to monitor changes in polar ice by utilizing airborne platforms to bridge the observational gap between the ICESat and ICESat-2 satellite missions. The program, which ran from 2009 to 2019, employed various aircraft equipped with advanced instruments to measure ice elevation, thickness, and underlying bedrock topography. The data collected helped scientists understand ice dynamics, contributing to predictive models of ice and sea-level rise. IceBridge played a crucial role in discovering the longest canyon on Earth beneath the Greenland ice sheet.