The launch of the European Space Agency’s GOCE probe has been aborted.

The countdown to the launch was stopped after a service tower failed to move clear of the rocket set to carry the probe into space from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. GOCE had already experienced problems with navigation systems, which delayed the launch from last September.

According to media reports, there were only 7 seconds left on the clock when someone pressed what I imagine was a giant red button with the word ‘ABORT’ on it.

As reported in Nature last week, the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer will measure Earth’s gravity field, providing data for oceanographers and climate modellers:

Over its expected lifetime of 20 months, GOCE will map tiny variations in Earth’s gravity field that stem from the position of mountains and ocean trenches, and from small density variations in the planet’s interior. Three pairs of cube-shaped accelerometers, in free fall inside the satellite, will make the measurements at five times the precision of GRACE, the US–German Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment that has been orbiting Earth since 2002.

At the moment ESA is not saying much.

Image: launch tower holding GOCE / ESA