NASA And German Space Agency Will Monitor The Shift Of Water Masses On Earth

NASA and the German Space Agency will launch a GRACE-C mission (photo: dock. NASA)

JAKARTA NASAdan Pusat Dirgantara Jerman (DLR), part of the German Space Agency, collaborates in tracking water movements on Earth. Both will build satellites to be flown into orbit.

This satellite will be used to monitor water mass shifts in the oceans of ice and land Earth on a large scale. In addition, the satellite will measure changes in the gravitational field to provide an overview of the water cycle.

This collaboration began in 2023 when NASA and DLR signed a Climate Experiments Gravity Recovery and Continuity (GRACE-C) mission agreement, a replacement for the GRACE-Follow On mission. The new project is planned to launch in 2028.

NASA Science Association administrator Nicola Fox said that the GRACE-C is a collaborative effort to observe and study the most valuable resources on Earth. According to him, this partnership has a very important role.

"From the coastline to the kitchen table, there are no aspects on our planet that are not affected by changes in the water cycle. The partnership between NASA and the German Aerospace Center will play an important role in preparing the challenges we face today and tomorrow," Fox said., quoted from the NASA blog.

Meanwhile, a member of the DLR Executive Council, Walther Pelzer, explained that this collaboration will continue the GRACE mission which has been launched since 2002. This mission is believed to be able to assist climate research and the Earth's environment from space.

"The trust given by our US partners on German space expertise for this mission by assigning the construction of satellites and sending important parts of the GRACE-C instrumentation and mission control is also a sign of Germany's ability as the main location for spaceflight," Pelzer said.

Currently, engineers and scientists are finalizing design details for the GRACE-C instrument and satellite. Once the design is complete, a team from NASA will build a pair of identical satellites capable of flying up to a height of 500 kilometers.

Satellite and orbital systems from the GRACE-C mission will be similar to the GRACE-Follow on. This is done so that the GRACE-C can continue to observe from previous missions to understand water movement. This mission is expected to last for decades.