Two-way satellite tracking as basis of gravity field misssion scenarios - a simulation study with detailed error analysis II

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Roland Pail; Dr. Anja Schlicht
• Subject Area: Geodesy, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Geoinformatics, Cartography
• Term: from 2014 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 258302405

Three tasks can be achieved by inter-satellite links at the same time: time synchronization, ranging and data transfer. This synergy shall be used in a constellation of geostationary, geosynchronous and Galileo satellites to appropriately fulfill all three tasks. In this proposal gravity recovery and precise orbit determination of low-Earth orbiters are the focal points. Within boundaries defined by data transfer, the constellation of geostationary and Galileo satellites equipped with inter-satellite links will be optimized for orbit determination of low-Earth orbiters. The information on the achievable orbit accuracies will be used in the simulations of gravity field recovery. The first part of the project showed, that aliasing has a very big contribution to the total error budget. The non-tidal errors can be reduced by estimating gravity fields of low degree and order in a short time scale. This approach is introduced by Wiese. The follow-up proposal will study the possibility of co-parameterization of tidal modes in long-term studies. Therefore we propose an improvement of tidal models in this tracking constellation. The objective of this project is to complement the error tree of gravity field recovery in the framework of GETRIS (geodesy and time reference in space).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants