Benefit of enhanced electrostatic and optical accelerometry for future gravimetry missions

verfasst von: Alexey Kupriyanov, Arthur Reis, Manuel Schilling, Vitali Müller, Jürgen Müller
Abstract: Twenty years of gravity observations from various satellite missions have provided unique data about mass redistribution processes in the Earth system, such as melting of Greenland's ice shields, sea level changes, ground and underground water depletion, droughts, floods, etc. The ongoing climate change underlines the urgent need to continue this kind of observations with future gravimetry missions using enhanced concepts and sensors. This paper studies the benefit of enhanced electrostatic and novel optical accelerometers and gradiometers for future gravimetry missions. One of the limiting factors in the current space gravimetry missions is the drift of the Electrostatic Accelerometers (EA) which dominates the error contribution at low frequencies (<1mHz). This study focuses on the modeling of enhanced EAs with laser-interferometric readout, so-called optical accelerometers, and on evaluating their performance for gravity field recovery in future satellite missions. In this paper, we simulate gravimetry missions in multiple scopes, applying various software modules for satellite dynamics integration, accelerometer (ACC) and gradiometer simulation and gravity field recovery. The total noise budgets of the modeled enhanced electrostatic and optical ACCs show a similar sensitivity as the ACC concepts from other research groups. Parametrization w.r.t. the weight of the test mass (TM) of ACCs and the gap between the TM and the surrounding electrode housing confirmed the fact known from previous results that an ACC with a heavier TM and a larger gap will perform better. Our results suggest that the anticipated gain of novel ACCs might at some point be potentially limited by noise from the inter-satellite laser ranging interferometry. In order to present the advantage of the novel sensors, time-variable background models and associated aliasing errors were not considered in our simulations. The utilization of enhanced EAs and optical ACCs shows a significant improvement of accuracy compared to the currently used GRACE-like EA. In addition, their benefit in double satellite pairs in a so-called Bender constellation as well as in the combination of low-low satellite-to-satellite tracking with cross-track gradiometry has been investigated.
Organisationseinheit(en): Institut für Erdmessung
SFB 1464: Relativistische und quanten-basierte Geodäsie (TerraQ)
Externe Organisation(en): Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut)
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR)
Typ: Artikel
Journal: Advances in space research
Band: 73
Seiten: 3345-3362
Anzahl der Seiten: 18
ISSN: 0273-1177
Publikationsdatum: 15.03.2024
Publikationsstatus: Veröffentlicht
Peer-reviewed: Ja
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete: Luft- und Raumfahrttechnik, Astronomie und Astrophysik, Geophysik, Atmosphärenwissenschaften, Astronomie und Planetologie, Erdkunde und Planetologie (insg.)
Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung: SDG 13 – Klimaschutzmaßnahmen
Elektronische Version(en): https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.14875 (Zugang: Offen)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2023.12.067 (Zugang: Geschlossen)

BibTeX

@article{ded3d10c5d2844398695d2dcf592fd94,
title = "Benefit of enhanced electrostatic and optical accelerometry for future gravimetry missions",
abstract = "Twenty years of gravity observations from various satellite missions have provided unique data about mass redistribution processes in the Earth system, such as melting of Greenland's ice shields, sea level changes, ground and underground water depletion, droughts, floods, etc. The ongoing climate change underlines the urgent need to continue this kind of observations with future gravimetry missions using enhanced concepts and sensors. This paper studies the benefit of enhanced electrostatic and novel optical accelerometers and gradiometers for future gravimetry missions. One of the limiting factors in the current space gravimetry missions is the drift of the Electrostatic Accelerometers (EA) which dominates the error contribution at low frequencies (<1mHz). This study focuses on the modeling of enhanced EAs with laser-interferometric readout, so-called optical accelerometers, and on evaluating their performance for gravity field recovery in future satellite missions. In this paper, we simulate gravimetry missions in multiple scopes, applying various software modules for satellite dynamics integration, accelerometer (ACC) and gradiometer simulation and gravity field recovery. The total noise budgets of the modeled enhanced electrostatic and optical ACCs show a similar sensitivity as the ACC concepts from other research groups. Parametrization w.r.t. the weight of the test mass (TM) of ACCs and the gap between the TM and the surrounding electrode housing confirmed the fact known from previous results that an ACC with a heavier TM and a larger gap will perform better. Our results suggest that the anticipated gain of novel ACCs might at some point be potentially limited by noise from the inter-satellite laser ranging interferometry. In order to present the advantage of the novel sensors, time-variable background models and associated aliasing errors were not considered in our simulations. The utilization of enhanced EAs and optical ACCs shows a significant improvement of accuracy compared to the currently used GRACE-like EA. In addition, their benefit in double satellite pairs in a so-called Bender constellation as well as in the combination of low-low satellite-to-satellite tracking with cross-track gradiometry has been investigated.",
keywords = "Accelerometer, Gradiometer, Gravimetry, NGGM, Optical interferometry",
author = "Alexey Kupriyanov and Arthur Reis and Manuel Schilling and Vitali M{\"u}ller and J{\"u}rgen M{\"u}ller",
note = "Funding Information: This work is funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project-ID 434617780 – SFB 1464. ",
year = "2024",
month = mar,
day = "15",
doi = "10.48550/arXiv.2310.14875",
language = "English",
volume = "73",
pages = "3345--3362",
journal = "Advances in space research",
issn = "0273-1177",
publisher = "Elsevier Ltd.",
number = "6",
}