High resolution analysis of satellite gradiometry

Abstract

Satellite gravity gradiometry is a technique now under development which, by the middle of the next decade, may be used for the high resolution charting from space of the gravity field of the earth and, afterwards, of other planets. Some data analysis schemes are reviewed for getting detailed gravity maps from gradiometry on both a global and a local basis. It also presents estimates of the likely accuracies of such maps, in terms of normalized spherical harmonics expansions, both using gradiometry alone and in combination with data from a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver carried on the same spacecraft. It compares these accuracies with those of current and future maps obtained from other data (conventional tracking, satellite-satellite tracking, etc.), and also with the spectra of various signals of geophysical interest.