Abstract
The feasibility of the use of gravity gradiometers mounted on an Earth satellite in order to improve the estimation of its orbit is studied. Only the high-frequency orbit residuals that are caused by the uncertainty in our knowledge of the Earth's field are considered. Using the principle of minimum variance filtering, critical values of the variance of the mean instrument error, o$T/kT, are calculated at different altitudes under the assumption that harmonics beyond the 8 x 8 field are unknown (af = instrument error variance, T = instrument time constant, T- satellite period, kT- duration of filter window). It is found that instruments presently in development may lead to significantly improved ephemerides, especially at low altitudes.
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