The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Although the GOCE (Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer) gradiometer is highly accurate, it is not possible to map the complete gravity field at all spatial scales with the same quality. To overcome this limitation the position of the GOCE satellite is tracked by GPS relative to GPS satellites at an altitude of 20 000 km – this procedure is known as satellite-to-satellite tracking. The gradiometer is used to measure small scales of the gravity field whilst GPS is used to obtain large-scale data.