VEGA supports GOCE gravity mapping mission for ESA
17 March 2009 – VEGA, a
Finmeccanica company, is preparing for the launch of the European
Space Agency’s (ESA) Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Explorer
(GOCE) on Tuesday 17 March 2009.
GOCE has been developed to
generate detailed understanding of one of the Earth's most
fundamental forces of nature – gravity – and will map the field
with unprecedented accuracy and spatial resolution. As part of
ESA’s Living Planet programme – which is focused on Earth
observation – GOCE will be the first of a series of Earth Explorer
satellites in orbit, designed to provide information for
understanding critical Earth system variables.
VEGA is playing a key role on
the GOCE flight control team and mission control team (MCT),
providing systems and operations engineering support, and running
the Simulations Campaign with both the Prime and Back-Up
Simulations Officers. This campaign involves MCTs taking part in
day-long simulations, imitating the spacecraft and ground stations,
generating system failures, and ensuring all MCT members are adept
at dealing with possible live problems, once GOCE is launched.
John Lewis, Space Business
Development Director for VEGA Deutschland, said: “VEGA has
been working on GOCE for many years. Our operations and training
expertise has been gained over the past 30 years from such
pioneering missions and we are always delighted to support ESOC in
their innovative programmes.”
Further information:
For further information, please
contact Ruth Reinicke, Marketing Manager Germany, via marketing@vega.de or on +49 (0)2236
748-0.