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Back to the overview ... GRAVITY FIELD MISSIONS: STATUS & STUDIES FOR FUTURE MISSIONSJinsong Ping (pjs@shao.ac.cn) China has long history on measuring the earth gravity, science 1895. Recently, Chinese colleagues and relevent agencies have been promoting the GRACE concept mission for about 10 years. It is highly possible for us to promote the non-stop GRACE Gravity mission together oversea colleagues and agencies. And, the fact is, we are focusing on this work under a proposed national hazard reduction projects frame. 3 kinds of missions have been involved in this frame, one is the gravity and climate changes. The frame will be confirmed soon by Chinese government. About the gravity mission, the basic idea is, in 3 to 5 years, to launch three formation flight small satellites, or to launch two pairs of small satellites with successful payloads at lower orbit, so as to improve the resolution of the gravity. The international cooperations are welcome for all 3 kinds of missions. This non-stop Gravity mission group from China, includes the gravity and climate user agencies, s/c bus makers, KBR and GNSS receiver makers, scientists teams, as well as the ground segments/data processing center developers. USO has been used in our Martian mission, it will be launched in a few months. A space geodesy expert team of CNSA and NASA are discussing about this story (GRACE-2) by means of multi-lateral cooperation, with the support from CNSA and NASA HQs also. Hope to discuss about it among colleagues from CNSA, DLR，NASA and other relevent agencies of Europe. You see, we have successful experiences on launching double star space weather constellations with ESA. Hope such kinds of experience can benefit the GRACE-2 mission. Additionally, a laser technique and gravitational group from CAS starts to promote the future GRACE follow-on concept mission also. This mission is estimated to be launched sometime after 2020 or later. |