SAGE: an Italian project of satellite accelerometry

SAGE is a project for a satellite accelerometric mission aimed at deterniining with high precision the low-medium coefficients of the earth gravity field and their time variations. In the international panorama, SAGE would be a prosecution of CHAMP, both in time (in case of approval, SAGE launch date would be within the year 2001) and in space (SAGE would fly polar, filling in the polar gaps). SAGE has gone through a Phase A study commissioned by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), which lasted from December 1997 to October 1998.