Future dedicated Venus-SGG flight mission: Accuracy assessment and performance analysis

Abstract

This study concentrates principally on the systematic requirements analysis for the future dedicated Venus-SGG (spacecraft gravity gradiometry) flight mission in China in respect of the matching measurement accuracies of the spacecraft-based scientific instruments and the orbital parameters of the spacecraft. Firstly, we created and proved the single and combined analytical error models of the cumulative Venusian geoid height influenced by the gravity gradient error of the spacecraft-borne atom-interferometer gravity gradiometer (AIGG) and the orbital position error and orbital velocity error tracked by the deep space network (DSN) on the Earth station. Secondly, the ultra-high-precision spacecraft-borne AIGG is propitious to making a significant contribution to globally mapping the Venusian gravitational field and modeling the geoid with unprecedented accuracy and spatial resolution through weighing the advantages and disadvantages among the electrostatically suspended gravity gradiometer, the superconducting gravity gradiometer and the AIGG. Finally, the future dedicated Venus-SGG spacecraft had better adopt the optimal matching accuracy indices consisting of 3×10−13/s2 in gravity gradient, 10m in orbital position and 8×10−4m/s in orbital velocity and the preferred orbital parameters comprising an orbital altitude of 300±50km, an observation time of 60months and a sampling interval of 1s.