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  Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
 

Management
GRACE is a joint partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States and DLR in Germany. Dr. Byron Tapley, of UTCSR is GRACE Principal Investigator (PI). Tapley is responsible for the overall success of the GRACE mission and heads the US Science Team. He has partnered with Dr. Christoph Reigber, Director of the Earth Kinematics and Dynamics Division at GFZ in Potsdam, Germany as his Co-Principal Investigator. Dr. Reigber coordinates and manages the German contributions to the GRACE mission as well as the German Science Team. Dr. Mike Watkins at JPL is Project Scientist for GRACE. Dr. Ab Davis at JPL serves as Project Manager and is overseeing design, development, testing, and mission operations for GRACE. Rick Fitzgerald serves as Mission Manager for the GRACE mission at Goddard Space Flight Center's Earth Explorer's Office.

The Future
GRACE builds on the heritage of GFZ's CHAMP mission in the area of Earth gravity field measurements. The revolutionary new configuration for GRACE - utilizing two satellites following one another on the same orbital track - is expected to improve the accuracy of gravity field measurements dramatically. GFZ plans another mission called GIGOLO (Gravity Information Over Land and Ocean) as a follow on to GRACE.

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