The planned launch next week of GOCE, a satellite designed to measure Earth's gravity field in unprecedented detail, will bolster the fields of geodesy, oceanography and climate prediction, scientists hope. Part of the European Space Agency's Living Planet Programme, GOCE-for Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer-is scheduled for launch on 16 March from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia, using a converted Russian SS-20 missile. Problems with its upper-stage navigation system delayed the launch from last September.
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