AFP - The launch next week of a European satellite designed to monitor the response of icesheets to climate change has been delayed by a technical worry, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Friday.

CryoSat-2 had been scheduled to be launched from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan next Thursday.

The operation "has been delayed due to a concern related to the second stage steering engine of the Dnepr launcher," ESA said in a press release.

"Although the fuel supply of the second stage engine should be sufficient to get CryoSat into orbit, the fuel reserve is not as large as they would like it to be, according to the Ukrainian company Yuzhnoye, who developed and is responsible for the launcher.

"The situation is being reviewed, and measures will be taken to resolve this concern."

Kosmotras, the launch provider, will inform ESA of a new launch date shortly, it added.

CryoSat-2 is a replica of a first satellite which was lost through a second-stage launch failure in October 2005 that used a modified Russian SS-19 intercontinental ballistic missile.

The Dnepr is a three-stage derivation of an SS-18 ICBM.

The 700-kilo (1,540-pound) satellite carries an all-weather microwave radar altimeter designed to measure changes in the thickness of floating sea ice and land ice sheets to within one centimetre (0.4 of an inch).

It will be the third of ESA?s "Earth Explorer" satellites.

The others are GOCE, launched in March 2009 to monitor ocean circulation, and SMOS, launched in November 2009 to monitor soil moisture and ocean salinity.