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‘DEOS_CHAMP-01C_70’: a model of the Earth’s gravity field computed from accelerations of the CHAMP satellite

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Abstract

Performance of a recently proposed technique for gravity field modeling has been assessed with data from the CHAMP satellite. The modeling technique is a variant of the acceleration approach. It makes use of the satellite accelerations that are derived from the kinematic orbit with the 3-point numerical differentiation scheme. A 322-day data set with 30-s sampling has been used. Based on this, a new gravity field model – DEOS_CHAMP-01C_70 - is derived. The model is complete up to degree and order 70. The geoid height difference between the DEOS_CHAMP-01C_70 and EIGEN-GRACE01S models is 14 cm. This is less than for two other recently published models EIGEN-CHAMP03Sp and ITG-CHAMP01E. Furthermore, we analyze the sensitivity of the model to some empirically determined parameters (regularization parameter and the parameter that controls the frequency-dependent data weighting). We also show that inaccuracies related to non-gravitational accelerations, which are measured by the on-board accelerometer, have a minor influence on the computed gravity field model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Delft Institute of Earth Observation and Space Systems (DEOS), Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Kluyverweg 1, 2629 HS, Delft, The Netherlands

    P. Ditmar, V. Kuznetsov, A. A. van Eck van der Sluijs, E. Schrama & R. Klees

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  1. P. Ditmar
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  2. V. Kuznetsov
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  3. A. A. van Eck van der Sluijs
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  4. E. Schrama
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  5. R. Klees
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Correspondence to P. Ditmar.

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Ditmar, P., Kuznetsov, V., van der Sluijs, A.A.v. et al. ‘DEOS_CHAMP-01C_70’: a model of the Earth’s gravity field computed from accelerations of the CHAMP satellite. J Geodesy 79, 586–601 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-005-0008-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-005-0008-6

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