Celebrating completion of ESA's Earth Explorer, GOCE

In the northern Italian town of Turin on the 19 July 2007, scientists and engineers from the European Space Agency held a press conference to celebrate the completion of the new Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE).

After six years in development, the instrumentation carried on GOCE was on show in Italy at Thales Alenia Space, the company that has co-ordinated the project to date.

GOCE is the first Core Earth Explorer mission to be developed as part of ESA's Living Planet Programme. Dedicated to measuring the Earth's gravity field with unprecedented accuracy, GOCE will significantly advance our knowledge of how the Earth works by providing insight into ocean circulation, sea-level change, climate change, volcanism and earthquakes.

In the next months, GOCE will be put through a series of strenuous environmental tests at ESA-ESTEC in the Netherlands to ensure that it will withstand the rigors of launch and the hostile conditions of its exceptionally low orbit.