Now 40, NASA's LAGEOS Set the Bar for Studies of Earth
05/04/2016

On May 4, 1976, NASA launched a cannonball-shaped satellite that transformed studies of Earth’s shape, rotation and gravity field.

LAGEOS – short for Laser Geodynamic Satellite – was the first NASA orbiter dedicated to the precision measurement technique called laser ranging. With it, scientists have measured the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates, detected irregularities in the rotation of the planet, weighed it, and tracked small shifts in its center of mass.

Small deviations in the satellite’s orbit were used to develop early models of Earth’s gravitational field. Further perturbations in the orbit helped explain how sunlight heating small objects can affect their orbits, including near-Earth asteroids.

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