| Type(s) |
Satellite mission>Earth observation
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| Owner |
European Space Agency (ESA) |
| Organisation |
European Space Agency (ESA) |
| Abstract |
The GEOS research missions (GEOS-1 and -2) of ESA had the objective to study the particles, fields and plasmas of the Earth's magnetosphere from a geostationary orbit. The definition of the GEOS program was actually started in the late 1960s under ESRO (European Space Research Organization) management, the predecessor organization of ESA (ESA was founded in 1975). GEOS was conceived by ESRO as a broad scientific mission to be accomplished by a set of experiments chosen among proposals coming from the scientific community and integrated into the payload. The GEOS experimenters from the very beginning discussed ways to achieve the maximum scientific value from the satellite and defined common modes of payload operation and data handling (a GEOS coordination committee was established in 1972). Because of its unique orbit and the sophistication of its payload, GEOS was selected as the reference spacecraft in the world-wide IMS (International Magnetospheric Study) program during the period1977-1982.
|
| Cross Reference(s) |
ESA GEOS 1
ESA GEOS 2
|
| Discipline(s) |
Geology & soil
General Earth observation
|
