Calibration and validation of individual GOCE accelerometers by precise orbit determination

The European Space Agency Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circular Explorer (GOCE) carries a gradiometer consisting of three pairs of accelerometers in an orthogonal triad. Precise GOCE science orbit solutions (PSO), which are based on satellite-to-satellite tracking observations by the Global Positioning System and which are claimed to be...

Lunar tide contribution to thermosphere weather

As the utilization of low-Earth orbit increases, so does the need for improved ephemeris predictions and thus more accurate density models. In this paper we quantify the density variability of the thermosphere attributable to the lunar gravitational tide, a potentially predictable component of variability not included in any operational density...

Improved short-term variability in the thermosphere-ionosphere-mesosphere-electrodynamics general circulation model

We report on a new source of tidal variability in the National Center for Atmospheric Research thermosphere-ionosphere-mesosphere-electrodynamics general circulation model (TIME-GCM). Lower boundary forcing of the TIME-GCM for a simulation of November–December 2009 based on 3-hourly Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Application ...

GOCE: The first seismometer in orbit around the Earth

The first in situ sounding of a post-seismic infrasound wavefront is presented, using data from the GOCE mission. The atmospheric infrasounds following the great Tohoku earthquake (on 11 March 2011) induce variations of air density and vertical acceleration of the GOCE platform. These signals are detected at two positions along the GOCE orbit...

Validation of GOCE gravity field models by means of orbit residuals and geoid comparisons

Three GOCE-based gravity field solutions have been computed by ESA’s high-level processing facility and were released to the user community. All models are accompanied by variance-covariance information resulting either from the least squares procedure or a Monte-Carlo approach. In order to obtain independent external quality parameters and to...

GPS-derived orbits for the GOCE satellite

The first ESA (European Space Agency) Earth explorer core mission GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) was launched on 17 March 2009 into a sun-synchronous dusk–dawn orbit with an exceptionally low initial altitude of about 280 km. The onboard 12-channel dual-frequency GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver delivers...

GOCE SSTI L2 tracking losses and their impact on POD performance

The state-of-the-art GOCE Satellite-to-Satellite Tracking Instrument (SSTI) delivers high-quality GPS data with an almost continuous 1 Hz data rate, which allows for very Precise Orbit Determination (POD). Despite this good performance, the GPS receiver shows occasional unexpected L2 tracking losses, which mainly occur close to the geomagnetic...

GOCE gravitational gradients along the orbit

GOCE is ESA’s gravity field mission and the first satellite ever that measures gravitational gradients in space, that is, the second spatial derivatives of the Earth’s gravitational potential. The goal is to determine the Earth’s mean gravitational field with unprecedented accuracy at spatial resolutions down to 100 km. GOCE carries a gravity...