Gravity Field Explorer

ESA's gravity mission GOCE

The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) is dedicated to measuring the Earth's gravity field and modelling the geoid with extremely high accuracy and spatial resolution. It is the first Earth Explorer Core mission to be developed as part of ESA's Living Planet Programme and is scheduled for launch in 2007.

Mission objectives

To determine the gravity-field anomalies with an accuracy of 1 mGal (where 1 mGal = 10^-5 m/s^2).
To determine the geoid with an accuracy of 1-2 cm.
To achieve the above at a spatial resolution better than 100 km.

Mission elements

Single rigid octagonal spacecraft of approximately 5 m long and 1 m in diameter with fixed solar wings and no moving parts.
Gradiometer -- 3 pairs of 3-axis, servo-controlled, capacitive accelerometers (each pair separated by a distance of 0.5 m).
12-channel GPS receiver with geodetic quality.
Laser retroreflector enabling tracking by ground-based lasers.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• GOCE
• ESA
• gravity
• earth

[giuliasalfi]

it will be to know the variation in italy or japan aroun the sismic area....

[heXan]

@hatsoff456 no it doesn't. the CHAMP mission was used for that.

[hatsoff456]

does GOCE also study earth's magnetic field?

[reyknow]

what the hell, this was posted 3 years ago??

[utubeisthetruth]

Gravity is like wow man, far out.