GOCE: precise orbit determination for the entire mission

The Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) was the first Earth explorer core mission of the European Space Agency. It was launched on March 17, 2009 into a Sun-synchronous dusk-dawn orbit and re-entered into the Earth’s atmosphere on November 11, 2013. The satellite altitude was between 255 and 225 km for the measurement phases. The European GOCE Gravity consortium is responsible for the Level 1b to Level 2 data processing in the frame of the GOCE High-level processing facility (HPF). The Precise Science Orbit (PSO) is one Level 2 product, which was produced under the responsibility of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern within the HPF. This PSO product has been continuously delivered during the entire mission. Regular checks guaranteed a high consistency and quality of the orbits. A correlation between solar activity, GPS data availability and quality of the orbits was found. The accuracy of the kinematic orbit primarily suffers from this. Improvements in modeling the range corrections at the retro-reflector array for the SLR measurements were made and implemented in the independent SLR validation for the GOCE PSO products. The satellite laser ranging (SLR) validation finally states an orbit accuracy of 2.42 cm for the kinematic and 1.84 cm for the reduced-dynamic orbits over the entire mission. The common-mode accelerations from the GOCE gradiometer were not used for the official PSO product, but in addition to the operational HPF work a study was performed to investigate to which extent common-mode accelerations improve the reduced-dynamic orbit determination results. The accelerometer data may be used to derive realistic constraints for the empirical accelerations estimated for the reduced-dynamic orbit determination, which already improves the orbit quality. On top of that the accelerometer data may further improve the orbit quality if realistic constraints and state-of-the-art background models such as gravity field and ocean tide models are used for the reduced-dynamic orbit determination.

[1]  Thomas P. Yunck,et al.  Reduced-dynamic technique for precise orbit determination of low earth satellites , 1991 .

[2]  Keith M. Groves,et al.  Specification and Forecasting of Outages on Satellite Communication and Navigation Systems , 2001 .

[3]  Michael R Pearlman,et al.  THE INTERNATIONAL LASER RANGING SERVICE , 2007 .

[4]  C. Reigber,et al.  CHAMP mission status , 2002 .

[5]  Cryosat Science Report , 2003 .

[6]  Gerard Petit,et al.  IERS Conventions (2003) , 2004 .

[7]  M. Watkins,et al.  GRACE Measurements of Mass Variability in the Earth System , 2004, Science.

[8]  Enrico S. Canuto,et al.  Drag-Free and Attitude Control for the GOCE satellite , 2005, Proceedings of the 44th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[9]  Fernando Sansò,et al.  A Window on the Future of Geodesy , 2005 .

[10]  M. Rothacher,et al.  Kinematic Precise Orbit Determination for Gravity Field Determination , 2005 .

[11]  John C. Ries,et al.  Precise orbit determination for GRACE using accelerometer data , 2006 .

[12]  O. Francis,et al.  Modelling the global ocean tides: modern insights from FES2004 , 2006 .

[13]  U. Hugentobler,et al.  Pseudo-Stochastic Orbit Modeling Techniques for Low-Earth Orbiters , 2006 .

[14]  Gerhard Beutler,et al.  Precise orbit determination for GRACE using undifferenced or doubly differenced GPS data , 2006 .

[15]  Gerhard Beutler,et al.  Precise orbit determination for the GOCE satellite using GPS , 2006 .

[16]  Peter Steigenberger,et al.  Generation of a consistent absolute phase-center correction model for GPS receiver and satellite antennas , 2007 .

[17]  T. Gruber,et al.  The status of the GOCE High-level Processing Facility , 2007 .

[18]  Z. Altamimi,et al.  ITRF2005 : A new release of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame based on time series of station positions and Earth Orientation Parameters , 2007 .

[19]  L. Mervart,et al.  Bernese GPS Software Version 5.0 , 2007 .

[20]  Adrian Jäggi,et al.  Pseudo-stochastic orbit modelling of Low Earth Satellites using the Global Positioning System , 2007 .

[21]  W. Bosch,et al.  EOT11A - Empirical Ocean Tide Model from Multi-Mission Satellite Altimetry , 2008 .

[22]  Geoengineering Centres Gfz Publication Database Deutsches GeoFors Earth Observing Satellites,et al.  EIGEN-GL05C - A new global combined high-resolution GRACE-based gravity field model of the GFZ-GRGS cooperation , 2008 .

[23]  Oliver Montenbruck,et al.  Tracking and orbit determination performance of the GRAS instrument on MetOp-A , 2008 .

[24]  H. Bock,et al.  High-rate GPS clock corrections from CODE: support of 1 Hz applications , 2009 .

[25]  Oliver Montenbruck,et al.  Phase center modeling for LEO GPS receiver antennas and its impact on precise orbit determination , 2009 .

[26]  Eelco Doornbos,et al.  CHAMP and GRACE accelerometer calibration by GPS-based orbit determination , 2009 .

[27]  Gerhard Beutler,et al.  Orbit determination for the GOCE satellite , 2009 .

[28]  M. Meindl,et al.  GNSS processing at CODE: status report , 2009 .

[29]  H. Bock,et al.  GOCE orbit predictions for SLR tracking , 2011 .

[30]  Johannes Bouman,et al.  GOCE gravitational gradients along the orbit , 2011 .

[31]  U. Hugentobler,et al.  GPS-derived orbits for the GOCE satellite , 2011 .

[32]  H. Bock,et al.  Impact of GPS antenna phase center variations on precise orbits of the GOCE satellite , 2011 .

[33]  T. Helleputte The integration of spaceborne accelerometry in the precise orbit determination of low-flying satellites , 2011 .

[34]  B. Frommknecht,et al.  Mission design, operation and exploitation of the gravity field and steady-state ocean circulation explorer mission , 2011 .

[35]  Rune Floberghagen,et al.  GOCE level 1b data processing , 2011 .

[36]  H. Bock,et al.  GOCE SSTI L2 tracking losses and their impact on POD performance , 2011 .

[37]  R. Rummel,et al.  GOCE gravitational gradiometry , 2011 .

[38]  Erratum to: Mission design, operation and exploitation of the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission , 2012, Journal of Geodesy.

[39]  A. Jäggi,et al.  The new combined satellite only model GOCO03s , 2012 .

[40]  Oliver Montenbruck,et al.  Inter-agency comparison of TanDEM-X baseline solutions , 2012 .

[41]  R. Dach,et al.  Geocenter coordinates estimated from GNSS data as viewed by perturbation theory , 2013 .

[42]  More Than 50 Years of Progress in Satellite Gravimetry , 2013 .

[43]  H. Bock,et al.  GOCE: assessment of GPS-only gravity field determination , 2014, Journal of Geodesy.

[44]  H. Bock,et al.  GOCE precise orbit determination for the entire Mission – challenges in the final mission phase , 2014 .

[45]  H. Bock,et al.  Comparison of GOCE-GPS gravity fields derived by different approaches , 2013, Journal of Geodesy.

[46]  David Finkleman,et al.  A critical assessment of satellite drag and atmospheric density modeling , 2014 .