About 90 minutes after launch and almost one orbit around the Earth, the Rockot Breeze-KM upper-stage is oriented to inject the GOCE spacecraft into orbit. This happens around 280 km above central Europe within range of the ground stations in Kiruna in northern Sweden and Svalbard north of Norway. At this point, the first confirmation that all is well with the satellite is expected.

GOCE is launched into a Sun-synchronous, near-circular orbit with an inclination of 96.7º.