GOCE orbit analysis
Long-wavelength gravity field determination using the acceleration approach
- authored by
- O. Baur, T. Reubelt, M. Weigelt, M. Roth, N. Sneeuw
- Abstract
The restricted sensitivity of the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) gradiometer instrument requires satellite gravity gradiometry to be supplemented by orbit analysis in order to resolve long-wavelength features of the geopotential. For the hitherto published releases of the GOCE time-wise (TIM) and GOCE space-wise gravity field series - two of the official ESA products - the energy conservation method has been adopted to exploit GPS-based satellite-to-satellite tracking information. On the other hand, gravity field recovery from data collected by the CHAllenging Mini-satellite Payload (CHAMP) satellite showed the energy conservation principle to be a sub-optimal choice. For this reason, we propose to estimate the low-frequency part of the gravity field by the point-wise solution of Newton's equation of motion, also known as the acceleration approach. This approach balances the gravitational vector with satellite accelerations, and hence is characterized by (second-order) numerical differentiation of the kinematic orbit. In order to apply the method to GOCE, we present tailored processing strategies with regard to low-pass filtering, variance-covariance information handling, and robust parameter estimation. By comparison of our GIWF solutions (initials GI for "Geodätisches Institut" and IWF for "Institut für WeltraumForschung") and the GOCE-TIM estimates with a state-of-the-art gravity field solution derived from GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment), we conclude that the acceleration approach is better suited for GOCE-only gravity field determination as opposed to the energy conservation method.
- Organisation(s)
-
Institute of Geodesy
- External Organisation(s)
-
Austrian Academy of Sciences
University of Stuttgart
- Type
- Article
- Journal
- Advances in space research
- Volume
- 50
- Pages
- 385-396
- No. of pages
- 12
- ISSN
- 0273-1177
- Publication date
- 01.08.2012
- Publication status
- Published
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Aerospace Engineering, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Geophysics, Atmospheric Science, Space and Planetary Science, Earth and Planetary Sciences(all)
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG 13 - Climate Action
- Electronic version(s)
-
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2012.04.022 (Access:
Unknown)
-
Details in the research portal "Research@Leibniz University"