On 16 July, ESA is kicking off its CRYO2ICE campaign that aims to raise CryoSat-2's orbit by approximately 900 metres, bringing it in sync with NASA's ICESat-2. The campaign aims to maximise the overlaps between the two missions over the arctic region, allowing for near-simultaneous measurements from both CryoSat-2's radar and ICESat-2's laser instruments. The first phase of joint observations is expected to start officially on 10 August 2020, after the successful completion of the orbit change.

While planning the manoeuvres for the campaign, it was decided to limit their duration to minimise any possible outage of science generation as the SIRAL instrument must be put in standby mode during satellite operations. When the manoeuvres are not taking place, the SIRAL instrument will be in measurement mode according to mission planning.

Data dissemination to the science server will be continuous and, during the two weeks of the CRYO2ICE campaign, the data quality of CryoSat products will be carefully checked, analysing their Near-Real Time (NRT) production to ensure any deviation from nominal data quality is spotted and any issues are reported immediately via the CryoSat mission page.