Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
NASA and the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) used twin spacecraft to measure changes in Earth’s gravity field and track the movement of water and ice. The Center for Space Research at The University of Texas at Austin was the home institution of principal investigator Byron Tapley. Working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the center led mission design and system-requirements development, managed science operations, and was responsible for the science data system.
Follow this mission
Alerts are unavailable because this mission is no longer active.
Identity
- Aliases
- GRACEGravity Recovery and Climate ExperimentGRACE-1/GRACE-2
- Name
- Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
- Status
- completed
Details
- Astronauts
- -
- Description
- NASA and the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) used twin spacecraft to measure changes in Earth’s gravity field and track the movement of water and ice. The Center for Space Research at The University of Texas at Austin was the home institution of principal investigator Byron Tapley. Working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the center led mission design and system-requirements development, managed science operations, and was responsible for the science data system.
- Destination
- Near-polar orbit at approximately 500 km (89° inclination) as twin spacecraft measuring minute changes in separation to map Earth’s changing gravity field and track groundwater, ice sheets, sea level, and ocean circulation
- Launch Site
- Outcome
- Launched March 17, 2002, the twin GRACE spacecraft measured minute changes in their separation to produce monthly maps of Earth’s changing gravity field, transforming studies of groundwater, ice sheets, sea level and ocean circulation.
- Programs
- Start Date
- 2002-03-17
- Vehicle Families
Links
- Official Url
- https://science.nasa.gov/mission/grace/
Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- August 14, 2026 at 19:10:18 UTC
- Updated Time
- October 29, 2026 at 15:44:13 UTC
- Image
- Download
Other
- Affiliations
- Space Stations
- -
- Vehicles