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LAGEOS

LAser GEOdynamics Satellites 1 & 2

Active Mission

LAGEOS was the first spacecraft dedicated exclusively to high-precision laser ranging. LAGEOS-2, based on the original LAGEOS design, was built by the Italian Space Agency and launched in 1992. Looking like 900-pound golf balls, this pair of satellites with no sensors, electronics, or moving parts, but dimpled with hundreds of reflecting prisms, have helped scientists measure the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates, detect irregularities in the rotation of the planet, weigh it, and track small shifts in its center of mass. All this simply by being reliable targets for incredibly accurate laser measurements from the surface.

Type

Orbiter

Launch

May 4, 1976 and Oct. 22, 1992

Location

Medium Earth orbit

Objective

Enable precise laser measurements of Earth’s shape, rotation and gravity field
Learn more about LAGEOS

LAGEOS is elegantly simple – a ball covered with reflecting prisms. But it set a new standard for laser ranging, and has provided 40 years of continuity for these measurements.

Stephen Merkowitz

Stephen Merkowitz

Manager of NASA’s Space Geodesy Project at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland

LAGEOS Stories

Explore All LAGEOS (LAser GEOdynamics Satellite) Stories
Article
6 Min Read

Now 40, NASA’s LAGEOS Set the Bar for Studies of Earth

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