Satellite launch: Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer' (GOCE)

[zii]

This pretty sattellite will be lauched on Monday.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/GOCE_animation/

This Monday, 16 March 2009, at 15:21 CET (14:21 GMT, 17:21 Moscow time)
ESA will launch the most sophisticated of Earth Observation satellites
to investigate the Earth's gravitational field with unprecedented
resolution and accuracy.


The 'Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer' (GOCE)
will be placed into a low altitude orbit by a Russian Rokot vehicle from
the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia.


GOCE data will be crucial for obtaining accurate measurements of ocean
circulation and sea-level change, both of which are affected by climate
change. The data will help to better understand processes occurring
inside the Earth which are linked to volcanoes and earthquakes.

The ESA launch transmission will also be carried on the ESA website at
www.esa.int/goce




More background information can be found on
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/GOCE/SEMULOWX3RF_0.html.

The launch can be viewed from here:

Transmission details:
Atlantic Bird 3 @ 5degW (Its the same television satellite with the free digital transmissions of France 2 3 5 TMC etc)

Transponder KC04 Channel D (9MHz)
Downlink freq: 11091.5 MHz
Polarisation vertical
Signal: MPEG-2 (4:2:0) in the clear
Symbol rate: 5.632 Ms/s
FEC
Audio PIDs: open/none

[rob444]

Nice! :)

[Dribble Joy]

Ion drives are sexy :p

More info here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Field_and_Steady-State_Ocean_Circulation_Explorer).

[Archtemplar]

let's hope it doesn't plummet back to the Earth like a certain CO2 satellite launched by another space group...

[Transformer]

"Bringing Europe to the forefront of Earth Sciences"...Sounds to me that Europe is desperate for attention. Guess there's no time better than now since the US is busy throwing money away.

[nobby]

What is their real aim from doing this?

[zii]

What is their real aim of doing this?

Other nation states ^^ Never heard of Ion Cannons ;)

[Dribble Joy]

What is their real aim from doing this?

Looking at ocean currents. The other big thing is that altitude is a somewhat fudged value, at least when precision science is concerned.
What the satellite will measure is the gravitational pull of the planet, from which a gravitational datum will be drawn, such that altitude will be taken from a plane at which gravity is equal.

[Chosen One]

Other nation states ^^ Never heard of Ion Cannons ;)

havent you played C&C, new technology/weaponary :lol:

[zii]

Any way, the launch was stopped at T-7 because some doors would not open. It has been postponed until today at the same time.