NASA's climate-monitoring space laser is the last to ride to space on a Delta II rocket

This weekend, NASA is launching a new, high-tech satellite to monitor the planet's glacier and sea ice levels -- with space lasers, naturally. ICESat-2 will be a huge boon for climatologists, and it's also a bittersweet occasion: it will be the final launch aboard the trusty Delta II rocket, which has been putting birds in the air for nearly 30 years.