The terrestrial gravity field is one of the most fundamental sources of information to extend knowledge of physical processes on the Earth's surface and in the Earth's interior. In the context of the debate on global climate change, and hence mass transport in the complex system Earth, gravity field research increasingly attracts public interest.

The terrestrial gravity field is intrinsically tied to the figure of the Earth. Loosely speaking, from a physical point of view our home planet looks like a potato. Indeed, the inaccessible density structure of the Earth's interior involves the detailed determination of the Earth's shape to become a highly challenging task. Typically, the surface fitting best to the mean sea level deals as reference. This reference surface was introduced by C. F. Gauß and one of his students, J. B. Listing; it is denoted as "Gauß-Listing geoid" or simply "geoid".

Numerous (geo)scientific disciplines (such as geodesy, geophysics, oceanography and climatology) ask for the geoid in cm-accuracy at a spatial resolution of less than one hundred kilometers. Areas of application include the detailed modeling of ocean circulation, climate models refinement, the improved description of the Earth's interior structure, sea level change detection, height systems unification and high-precision satellite orbit determination.

The launch of the satellite missions GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) and GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) opened a new chapter in Earth observation from space. The complementary missions substantially upgrade knowledge of our planet's interactions and dynamics.

The Space Research Institute (IWF) has long-standing expertise in space-based gravity field recovery. In the framework of the project "GOCE High-level Performance Facility", the IWF is officially involved in the ESA-coordinated analysis of science data.