Applying spectral leakage corrections to gravity field determination from satellite tracking data

SUMMARY Uneven data coverage might lead to biases in solutions of inverse problems expressed in a truncated expansion of a complete and infinite set of basis functions. Spectral leakage corrections exist, consisting of a specific weight matrix for the data, and in this paper, these corrections are applied to the problem of determining the gravity field of a planetary body from satellite tracking data. By means of simulations of global gravity field determination in a fully dynamic setting, it is shown that the leakage corrections lead to solutions with less spurious power in the higher degrees, and solutions that are generally closer to their true values, when compared to standard least-squares solutions. An example for flyby geometries is also considered. They form a special case, where a lower degree gravity field is estimated from a data set that is extremely limited. It is shown here how spectral leakage corrections might help to get better estimates of separate coefficients from combined data sets, provided of course that the data are sensitive to their induced perturbations.

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