Abstract
A method has been developed and tested for estimating calibration parameters for the six accelerometers on board the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) from star tracker observations. These six accelerometers are part of the gradiometer, which is the prime instrument on board GOCE. It will be shown that by taking appropriate combinations of observations collected by the accelerometers, by modeling acceleration terms caused by gravity gradients from an a priori low-degree spherical harmonic expansion, and by modeling rotational acceleration terms derived from star-tracker observations, scale factors of each of the accelerometers can be estimated for each axis. Simulated observations from a so-called end-to-end simulator were used to test the method. This end-to-end simulator includes a detailed model of the GOCE satellite, its instruments and instrument errors, and its environment. Results of the tests indicate that scale factors of all six accelerometers can be determined with an accuracy of around 0.01 for all components on a daily basis.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Alenia (1999) GOCE—Gravity field and ocean circulation explorer, Phase A, Summary Report, ESA Contract 13028/98/NL/GD, Alenia Aerospazio, June
Bouman J, Koop R, Tscherning C, Visser P (2004) Calibration of GOCE SGG data using high-low SST, terrestrial gravity data, and global gravity field models. J Geod 78(1–2): 124–137. doi:10.1007/s00190-004-0382-5
Bruinsma S, Biancale R (2003) Total densities derived from accelerometer data. J Spacecraft Rockets 40(2): 230–236
Bruinsma S, Tamagnan D, Biancale R (2004) Atmospheric densities derived from CHAMP/STAR accelerometer observations. Planet Space Sci 52(4): 297–312. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2003.11.004
Catastini G, Cesare S, De Sanctis S, Dumontel M, Parisch M, Sechi G (2006) Predictions of the GOCE in-flight performances with the end-to-end system simulator. In: 3rd GOCE User Workshop, 6–8 November 2006, Frascati, Italy. ESA SP-627, pp 9–16
Cesare S (2005) Performance requirements and budgets for the gradiometric mission. Technical Note, GOC-TN-AI-0027, Issue 3, Alenia Spazio, Turin, May
Cesara C, Catastini G (2005) Gradiometer on-orbit calibration procedure analysis. Technical Note to ESA, GO-TN-AI-0069, Issue 3, Alenia Aerospazio, May
Drinkwater M, Haagmans R, Muzzi D, Popescu A, Floberghagen R, Kern M, Fehringer M (2007) The GOCE gravity mission: ESA’s first core explorer. In: 3rd GOCE user workshop, 6–8 November 2006, Frascati, Italy. ESA SP-627, pp 1–7
ESA (1999) Gravity field and steady-state ocean circulation mission. Reports for Mission Selection, The Four Candidate Earth Explorer Core Missions, SP-1233(1), European Space Agency, July
Lemoine FG, Kenyon SC, Factor JK, Trimmer RG, Pavlis NK, Chin DS, Cox CM, Klosko SM, Lutchke SB, Torrence MH, Wang YM, Williamson RG, Pavlis EC, Rapp RH, Olsen TR (1998) The Development of the Joint NASA GSFC and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) Geopotential Model EGM96, NASA/TP–1998-206861
Montenbruck O, Gill E (2000) Satellite Orbits—Models methods applications. Springer, Heidelberg ISBN 3-540-67280-X
Reigber C, Schmidt R, Flechtner F, Konig R, Meyer U, Neumayer KH, Schwintzer P, Zhu SY (2005) An Earth gravity field model complete to degree and order 150 from GRACE: EIGEN-GRACE02S. J Geodyn 39(1): 1–10
Tapley BD, Watkins MM, Ries JC, Davis GW, Eanes RJ, Poole SR, Rim HJ, Schutz BE, Shum CK, Nerem RS, Lerch FJ, Marshall JA, Klosko SM, Pavlis NK, Williamson RG (1996) The Joint Gravity Model 3. J Geophys Res 101(B12): 28,029–28,049
Tapley BD, Bettadpur S, Watkins M, Reigber C (2004) The gravity recovery and climate experiment experiment, mission overview and early results. Geophys Res Lett 31: L09607. doi:10.1029/2004GL019920
Visser PNAM (2007) GOCE gradiometer validation by GPS. Adv Space Res 39(10): 1630–1637. doi:10.1016/j.asr.2006.09.014
Open Access
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Visser, P.N.A.M. Exploring the possibilities for star-tracker assisted calibration of the six individual GOCE accelerometers. J Geod 82, 591–600 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-007-0205-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-007-0205-6