Analytic error analysis of orbital configurations for gravity research missions
G. Valles Valverde (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
E. J.O. Schrama – Mentor (TU Delft - Astrodynamics & Space Missions)
B. C. Root – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Planetary Exploration)
J. Encanacao de – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Astrodynamics & Space Missions)
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Abstract
The GRACE/GRACE-FO mission has provided Earth's monthly gravity field data for more than 20 years. It has been a major success and has enabled significant contributions across multiple domains (e.g., water management, cryosphere monitoring, solid Earth sciences). Nonetheless, short-periodic effects are undersampled, and the data is noisy at high spatial frequencies, leading to north-south stripes in gravity field functionals. Future gravity research missions aim at improving both spatial and temporal resolution to fulfil increasingly demanding science and societal needs. In this work, an analytical spectral methodology is employed to study gravity field recovery capabilities of different configurations: GRACE-like, Bender configuration, and multi-satellite pairs configurations. The analytical model underestimates GRACE operational performance by almost one order of magnitude. Application of NGGM performance to a Bender configuration shows the observability of the atmospheric and ocean non-tidal signal with a resolution of 200 km. Moreover, the theoretical feasibility of daily and 3-hour solutions with 3 and 48 satellite pairs, respectively, is demonstrated, with a resolution of roughly 1000 km, assuming CubeSat performance. In this way, future missions might not only improve spatio-temporal resolution but also mitigate other error sources.