GRACE-FO precise orbit determination and gravity recovery

Abstract

The gravity recovery and climate experiment follow-on (GRACE-FO) satellites, launched in May of 2018, are equipped with geodetic quality GPS receivers for precise orbit determination (POD) and gravity recovery. The primary objective of the GRACE-FO mission is to map the time-variable and mean gravity field of the Earth. To achieve this goal, both GRACE-FO satellites are additionally equipped with a K-band ranging (KBR) system, accelerometers and star trackers. Data processing strategies, data weighting approaches and impacts of observation types and rates are investigated in order to determine the most efficient approach for processing GRACE-FO multi-type data for precise orbit determination and gravity recovery. Two GPS observation types, un-differenced (UD) and double-differenced (DD) observations in general can be used for GPS-based POD and gravity recovery. The GRACE-FO KBR observations are mainly used for gravity recovery, but they can be also used for POD to improve the relative orbit accuracy. The main purpose of this paper is to study the impacts of the DD, UD and KBR observations on GRACE-FO POD and gravity recovery. The precise orbit accuracy is assessed using several tests, which include analysis of orbital fits, satellite laser ranging residuals, KBR range residuals and orbit comparisons. The gravity recovery is validated by comparing different gravity solutions through coefficient-wise comparison, degree difference variances and water height variations over the whole Earth and selected area and river basins.