Abstract
The launch of the GRACE mission brought a broad interest within the geophysical community in monitoring temporal gravity field variations. Due to the limited lifetime of GRACE, several studies have been conducted for the search of optimal GRACE follow-on and future satellite gravity missions. These studies mainly discuss the use of alternative formations like Pendulum, Cartwheel and LISA as well as the double inline pair missions with different orbits as a possible substitute of the current GRACE mission. The double satellite pair configuration in a so-called Bender constellation, however, is currently in the focus of research into time-variable gravity field recovery by future satellite missions, where the primary objective is to achieve higher temporal and spatial resolutions.When looking for optimal double inline missions, one important aspect is the impact of the groundtrack pattern of such missions on the quality of gravity recovery. The investigation of pattern distribution impact on the recovery quality may lead to a better understanding of orbital parameter optimization. This study, in particular, investigates the influence of relative differences between the ascending nodes (longitude) in a double pair mission. The research aims to show how the variations in ascending node difference change the quality of gravity solutions to the large extent. We also show the impact of the time-variable gravity field itself on the error level of the gravity solutions, i.e. how the quality of the gravity field changes simply by changing the signal being sampled, but holding the sampling constant.
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Acknowledgements
This study was part of the project “Assessment of Satellite Constellations for Monitoring the Variations in Earth’s Gravity Field (SC4MGV)”. ESA-ESTEC is gratefully acknowledged for funding the project under Contract No. 4000108663/13/NL/MV.
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Pour, S.I., Weigelt, M., Reubelt, T., Sneeuw, N. (2016). Impact of Groundtrack Pattern of Double Pair Missions on the Gravity Recovery Quality: Lessons from the ESA SC4MGV Project. In: Freymueller, J.T., Sánchez, L. (eds) International Symposium on Earth and Environmental Sciences for Future Generations. International Association of Geodesy Symposia, vol 147. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/1345_2016_228
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1345_2016_228
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