HR: 1330h
AN: G32A-0723    [PDF]
TI: The Effect of Arc Length on GRACE Gravity Models
AU: * Gunter, B
EM: gunter@csr.utexas.edu
AF: The University of Texas at Austin Center for Space Research, 3925 West Braker Lane Suite 200, Austin, TX 78759-5321 United States
AU: Kang, Z
EM: kang@csr.utexas.edu
AF: The University of Texas at Austin Center for Space Research, 3925 West Braker Lane Suite 200, Austin, TX 78759-5321 United States
AU: Ries, J
EM: ries@csr.utexas.edu
AF: The University of Texas at Austin Center for Space Research, 3925 West Braker Lane Suite 200, Austin, TX 78759-5321 United States
AB: Conventional modeling techniques often make use of a one day integration period (arc) in order to recover as much of the gravity field signal as possible. This one day arc length has served as a reasonable compromise between the ability to resolve the long period orbit perturbations from the gravity field and the growth of various modeling errors due to the extended integration time. The nature of the observables from the GRACE mission, however, may make it more effective to use a shorter arc length (i.e., less than one day). The data gathered by the GRACE mission differs from classical methods by relying principally on the high precision measurement of the short-period, differential perturbations of the two GRACE satellites. As a result, a shorter arc length should still be able to resolve the long wavelength components of the gravity field effectively without suffering from the longer period modeling errors associated with the longer arc lengths. Using data from the GRACE mission, this study will present results from a series of experiments designed to test the influence of both short and long arc lengths on the estimation of the gravity field.
DE: 1214 Geopotential theory and determination
DE: 1227 Planetary geodesy and gravity (5420, 5714, 6019)
SC: Geodesy [G]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting