I am not an expert, but the affine Grassmannian is intimately related to the representation theory of the Langlands dual group $G^{\vee}$. Assume that $G$ is complex semisimple and simply-connected (for simplicity, so to speak). Recall that the dominant weights of $G^{\vee}$ index the finite-dimensional irreducible complex $G^{\vee}$-modules. The dominant weights of $G^{\vee}$ are the dominant coweights of $G$.
Note also that the dominant coweights of $G$ index the strata in a stratification of $Gr_G$. Given a dominant coweight $\lambda$ of $G$, let $Gr^{\lambda}$ denote the corresponding stratum. It turns out that the intersection homology $IH_*(\overline{Gr^{\lambda}})$ is naturally a $G^{\vee}$-module, and is isomorphic to the irrep of $G^{\vee}$ of highest coweight $\lambda$. This description also yields some nice bases for irreps of $G^{\vee}$, called MV cycles. You might read some papers by Kamnitzer and Mirkovic-Vilonen on this subject.