Daimler-Benz Aerospace's (Dasa) Dornier division in Munich has won an $18 million contract from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to build two Dasa Flexbus spacecraft platforms for NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment mission. The 380kg satellites will be launched aboard a Russian Cosmos booster from Plesetsk in 2001 and placed into 450km circular polar orbits. Flying in tandem up to 500km apart, they will make precise measurements of the Earth's gravity field and changes in the ionosphere.
Source: Flight International
