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Find out more about Patricia: An award-winning journalist, author, and former NASA spokesman, Patricia Phillips has written about space for international markets since the 1970's. She's a skilled platform speaker, anthologized poet, and popular Native American story teller. Her love for space began when she watched Sputnik sail overhead and thought the whole idea was as magical as anything she could ever imagine. She still does. |
Science fact takes on the look of science fiction as the European Space Agency (ESA) prepares to launch the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission Sept. 10. Reminiscent of an early Star Wars look, GOCE is a sophisticated spacecraft that will map Earth's gravitational field and our planet's unique galactic reference shape, called the geoid.
Six specialized instruments will map Earth's gravity field along all three axes. The combined data will increase our understanding of not only gravitational anomalies, but will also provide information for ocean and climate studies, including sea-level changes, oceanic circulation and ice caps dynamics survey.
Ferrying GOCE into a low-altitude, near sun-synchronous orbit: a Russian Rockot, launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia, some 800 km north of Moscow. Lift-off is set for take place at 16:21 CEST (14:21 UTC), or 4:21 p.m., on Wednesday 10 September.
The launcher is operated by Eurockot Launch Services, a joint venture between EADS Astrium and the Khrunichev Space Centre (Russia). ESA is teamed with 45 European companies, led by Thales Alenia Space, in this venture.
GOCE is the first element of ESA's Core Mission of the Earth Explorer program, which got underway in 1999. Two more Core missions are scheduled, one in 2010 and one in 2013.
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