Overview of Swarm Accelerometer Data Quality

Abstract (2017)

Authors

C Siemes European Space Agency (ESA)
G Apelbaum Leibniz Universität
J.A.A. van den IJssel Astrodynamics & Space Missions - Aerospace Engineering
E.N. Doornbos Astrodynamics & Space Missions - Aerospace Engineering
J. De Teixeira Da Encarnação Astrodynamics & Space Missions - Aerospace Engineering
J Flury Leibniz Universität
L Grunwaldt Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
PE Holmdahl Olsen Technical University of Denmark
J Kraus Serenum
Radek Pereštý Serenum
S Svitlov Leibniz Universität
Research Group
Astrodynamics & Space Missions (Aerospace Engineering) (TU Delft)
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Published Date

2017

Language

English

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Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Department

Space Engineering

Research Group

Astrodynamics & Space Missions

Abstract

The Swarm satellites carry accelerometers as part of their scientific payload. These instruments measure the non-gravitational acceleration due to forces like drag or radiation pressure acting on the spacecraft, from which thermospheric neutral densities and potentially winds can be derived. Unfortunately, the acceleration measurements suffer from a variety of perturbations, the most prominent being slow temperature-induced bias variations and sudden bias changes. Other less prominent perturbation includes spikes and artificial periodic signals. Though all perturbation are visible in the measurements of all Swarm accelerometers, their severity is much different for the three Swarm satellites. In this presentation, we illustrate all known disturbances and assess their severity for scientific exploitation of the accelerometer data separately for each Swarm satellite.