NASA officials and their German counterparts have approved the joint continuation of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). The spacecrafts used for the project will stay on course until 2015, as originally planned.
GRACE uses two identical spacecraft orbiting around the Earth with a separation of 137 miles. The devices are over 343 miles above our planet and are being used to measure varied levels of strength for the Earth’s gravitational field in different areas.
NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and German Aerospace Center (DLR) Executive Board Chairman Johann-Dietrich Woerner signed off on the continuation of the GRACE project at a meeting in Berlin Thursday.
The spacecrafts used in the project have been in orbit since 2002 and NASA officials think more information can be pulled from them for years to come.
“The extension of this successful mission will deliver more valuable data to help us understand how Earth’s mass and gravity vary over time,” stated Woerner in a press release. “This is an important component necessary to study changes in global sea level, polar ice mass, deep ocean currents, and depletion and recharge of continental aquifers. We appreciate the strong cooperation with our partner NASA.”
The GRACE mission has already delivered to NASA experts a visual model showing various changes with images similar to topographical mapping images, but in a spherical shape and with a different correlation of meaning for the various levels depicted on the Earth’s surface. The changes in the strength of Earth’s gravitational pull in various regions is said to be related to the uneven allotment of solid mass under the Earth’s surface.
The mission has already shed some light on the distribution of different water sources in California’s Central Valley. But the information recording devices have also monitored changes in Greenland’s ice sheets that have been falling piece by piece into the ocean.
The mission has also provided new information used for maps that NASA says are 100 times more accurate than other maps and make work easier for oceanographers, geologists, and hydrologists. The maps are also key components for worldwide GPS tracking devices that are commonly used by civilian and military drivers around the world.
GRACE uses two identical spacecraft orbiting around the Earth with a separation of 137 miles. The devices are over 343 miles above our planet and are being used to measure varied levels of strength for the Earth’s gravitational field in different areas.
NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and German Aerospace Center (DLR) Executive Board Chairman Johann-Dietrich Woerner signed off on the continuation of the GRACE project at a meeting in Berlin Thursday.
The spacecrafts used in the project have been in orbit since 2002 and NASA officials think more information can be pulled from them for years to come.
“The extension of this successful mission will deliver more valuable data to help us understand how Earth’s mass and gravity vary over time,” stated Woerner in a press release. “This is an important component necessary to study changes in global sea level, polar ice mass, deep ocean currents, and depletion and recharge of continental aquifers. We appreciate the strong cooperation with our partner NASA.”
The GRACE mission has already delivered to NASA experts a visual model showing various changes with images similar to topographical mapping images, but in a spherical shape and with a different correlation of meaning for the various levels depicted on the Earth’s surface. The changes in the strength of Earth’s gravitational pull in various regions is said to be related to the uneven allotment of solid mass under the Earth’s surface.
The mission has already shed some light on the distribution of different water sources in California’s Central Valley. But the information recording devices have also monitored changes in Greenland’s ice sheets that have been falling piece by piece into the ocean.
The mission has also provided new information used for maps that NASA says are 100 times more accurate than other maps and make work easier for oceanographers, geologists, and hydrologists. The maps are also key components for worldwide GPS tracking devices that are commonly used by civilian and military drivers around the world.
