The GRACE twin satellites, launched 17 March 2002, are making detailed measurements of Earth's gravity field changes and revolutionizing investigations about Earth's water reservoirs over land, ice and oceans, as well as earthquakes and crustal deformations. The two GRACE satellites have completed more than 13 years of continuous measurements!

GRACE is a collaboration of the US and German space agencies (NASA and DLR). GRACE ground segment operations are currently co-funded by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and the European Space Agency (ESA). NASA, ESA, GFZ and DLR are supporting the continuation of the measurements of mass redistribution in the Earth system. The key partners in the design, construction and launch of the mission have been the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Texas Center for Space Research, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, as well as Astrium GmBH, Space Systems Loral (SS/L), Onera and Eurockot GmBH.

GRACE TELLUS provides user-friendly Level-3 data grids of monthly surface mass changes, with most geophysical corrections applied, to analyze changes in the mass of the Earth's hydrologic, cryospheric, and oceanographic components. We do so by using GRACE Level-2 data, with additional post-processing, alone or in combination with other ancillary data, to generate gridded, geo-located products (monthly and time-averaged) with the most up-to-date corrections.

GRACE gravity data in spherical harmonic coefficients (Level-2 data), for both the time-averaged and time-variable fields, are available from either JPL's PO.DAAC or GFZ's ISDC.

Mission Operation Status

Up-to-date GRACE Mission Operation Status is provided from our partner UT CSR.

More Information (Partners, Mission Information etc.)

The NASA GRACE Fact Sheet (PDF, 136 KB) has basic information about gravity, about the science of measuring the gravity field, and about the GRACE instruments. The GRACE Launch Press Kit (PDF, 226 KB) was prepared to explain the GRACE mission and science to journalists before launch in 2002, and it contains details on the spacecraft dimensions, mass, power, etc.

Other sources of GRACE products and related links are listed here.

Acknowledgements

GRACE Tellus is supported by NASA's 'Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments' (MEASURES) Program. GRACE Tellus is a member of the Earth Science Information Partner (ESIP) Federation.

For any problems or suggestions, please contact JPL's GRACE team.