Successful German-US environmental mission to be continued with GRACE-C – March 19, 2024
The next generation of the satellite pair will use a high-precision laser instrument with key contributions from the AEI Hannover to monitor indicators of climate change.
“Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment – Continuity” (GRACE-C) will continue more than 20 years of space-based measurements of the Earth’s gravity field. The observations, which enable studies of global groundwater levels and other indicators of climate change, are important for climate research. GRACE-C is a joint mission of the German Space Agency at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the US space agency NASA. The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute; AEI) in Hannover is involved in implementing the German contribution, the construction of the central laser-based measurement system. The launch is scheduled for 2028.