Accurate and rapid error estimation on global gravitational field from current GRACE and future GRACE Follow-On missions
Zheng Wei(郑伟)a)b)† , Hsu Hou-Tse(许厚泽)a), Zhong Min(钟敏)a), and Yun Mei-Juan(员美娟)c)
a Key Laboratory of Dynamic Geodesy, Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430077, China; b Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan; c Department of Applied Physics, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, China
Abstract Firstly, the new combined error model of cumulative geoid height influenced by four error sources, including the inter-satellite range-rate of an interferometric laser (K-band) ranging system, the orbital position and velocity of a global positioning system (GPS) receiver and non-conservative force of an accelerometer, is established from the perspectives of the power spectrum principle in physics using the semi-analytical approach. Secondly, the accuracy of the global gravitational field is accurately and rapidly estimated based on the combined error model; the cumulative geoid height error is 1.985×10-1 m at degree 120 based on GRACE Level 1B measured observation errors of the year 2007 published by the US Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the cumulative geoid height error is 5.825×10-2 m at degree 360 using GRACE Follow-On orbital altitude 250 km and inter-satellite range 50 km. The matching relationship of accuracy indexes from GRACE Follow-On key payloads is brought forward, and the dependability of the combined error model is validated. Finally, the feasibility of high-accuracy and high-resolution global gravitational field estimation from GRACE Follow-On is demonstrated based on different satellite orbital altitudes.
Received: 17 November 2008
Revised: 20 December 2008
Accepted manuscript online:
Fund: Project
supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant
No 40674038), the Funds of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for Key
Topics in Innovation Engineering (Grant Nos KZCX2-YW-143 and
KZCX2-YW-202), the National High Technology Research and Development
Program of China (863) (Grant Nos 2009AA12Z138 and 2006AA09Z153) and
the Grant-in-Aid
for Scientific Research of Japan (Grant No B19340129).
Cite this article:
Zheng Wei(郑伟), Hsu Hou-Tse(许厚泽), Zhong Min(钟敏), and Yun Mei-Juan(员美娟) Accurate and rapid error estimation on global gravitational field from current GRACE and future GRACE Follow-On missions 2009 Chin. Phys. B 18 3597
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