European Gravity Probe Returned to Normal Orbit

摘要

Europe's gravity-measuring GOCE satellite has returned to its exceptionally low op-erating orbit after a series of maneuvers that successfully compensated for a July anomaly that had shut down the satellite's ability to transmit science data, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced Sept. 29.rnA pair of apparently unrelated malfunc-tions in and around the Computer system of the Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Cir-culation Explorer had stopped data teleme-try and forced ESA managers to raise GOCE's orbit to 263 kilometers, some 7 kilo-meters above its optimal operating altitude, while they worked to correct the problem.