The Grace Mission: Status and Progress

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) is a dedicated satellite mission whose objective is to map the global gravity field with unprecedented accuracy over a spatial scales approaching 200 km. The Grace measurements of mass flux are significant for climate related Earth System Studies and have been a major contributor to satellite determined earth gravity models. The GRACE mission operates as a complex "system of systems" comprised of: the GPS flight segment, IAG network of GPS ground receivers, the twin GRACE satellites, a mission operations system center and a distributed element Science Data System. The two satellites were launched on March 17, 2002 and are planned to operate through 2009. Mission Accomplishments to date include construction of second generation mean gravity models (GGM02, Eigen-G 03) and 50 monthly solutions (through July 2006). The orders of magnitude improvement in gravity field accuracy is stimulating mass balance studies in Hydrology, Oceanography, Glaciology and Solid Earth Sciences. This presentation will summarize the mission status, satellite and instrument performance, status of the current data reprocessing and recent advances in applying these measurements to contemporary earth system studies.