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What Can be Expected from the GRACE-FO Laser Ranging Interferometer for Earth Science Applications?

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Abstract

The primary objective of the gravity recovery and climate experiment follow-on (GRACE-FO) satellite mission, due for launch in August 2017, is to continue the GRACE time series of global monthly gravity field models. For this, evolved versions of the GRACE microwave instrument, GPS receiver, and accelerometer will be used. A secondary objective is to demonstrate the effectiveness of a laser ranging interferometer (LRI) in improving the satellite-to-satellite tracking measurement performance. In order to investigate the expected enhancement for Earth science applications, we have performed a full-scale simulation over the nominal mission lifetime of 5 years using a realistic orbit scenario and error assumptions both for instrument and background model errors. Unfiltered differences between the synthetic input and the finally recovered time-variable monthly gravity models show notable improvements with the LRI, on a global scale, of the order of 23 %. The gain is realized for wavelengths smaller than 240 km in case of Gaussian filtering but decreases to just a few percent when anisotropic filtering is applied. This is also confirmed for some typical regional Earth science applications which show randomly distributed patterns of small improvements but also degradations when using DDK4-filtered LRI-based models. Analysis of applied error models indicates that accelerometer noise followed by ocean tide and non-tidal mass variation errors are the main contributors to the overall GRACE-FO gravity model error. Improvements in these fields are therefore necessary, besides optimized constellations, to make use of the increased LRI accuracy and to significantly improve gravity field models from next-generation gravity missions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank BMBF (German Ministry for Education and Research), BMWi (German Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology), HGF (German Helmholtz Foundation) and DLR (German Aerospace Center) for providing funding and in kind contribution for implementation of the German GRACE-FO mission elements. The paper also arises from the ISSI (International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland) Workshop on Remote Sensing and Water Resources in October 2014.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department 1 “Geodesy and Remote Sensing”, GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Frank Flechtner, Karl-Hans Neumayer, Christoph Dahle, Henryk Dobslaw & Elisa Fagiolini

  2. SpaceTech GmbH, Seelbachstr. 13, 88090, Immenstaad, Germany

    Jean-Claude Raimondo

  3. Department 5 “Earth Surface Processes”, GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Andreas Güntner

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  1. Frank Flechtner
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  2. Karl-Hans Neumayer
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Correspondence to Frank Flechtner.

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Flechtner, F., Neumayer, KH., Dahle, C. et al. What Can be Expected from the GRACE-FO Laser Ranging Interferometer for Earth Science Applications?. Surv Geophys 37, 453–470 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-015-9338-y

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