An Algorithm for Strapdown Airborne Gravity Disturbance Vector Measurement Based on High-Precision Navigation and EGM2008

Attitude errors, accelerometer bias, the gravity disturbance vector, and their coupling are the primary factors obstructing strapdown airborne vector gravimetry. This paper takes the geocentric inertial frame as a reference and solves the kinematic equations of its motion and its errors of the body frame and local geographic frame in the Lie group, respectively; the attitude accuracy is improved through a high-precision navigation algorithm. The constant accelerometer bias is estimated through Kalman filtering and is deducted from the accelerometer output to eliminate its influence. Based on the EGM2008 model, the low-frequency components of the gravity disturbance vector are corrected. The gravity disturbance vectors after model data fusion were low-pass filtered to obtain the ultimate results. This method was applied to flight experimental data in the South China Sea, and a gravity anomaly accuracy of better than 0.5 mGal, a northward gravity disturbance accuracy of 0.85 mGal, and an eastward gravity disturbance accuracy of 4.0 mGal were obtained, with a spatial resolution of approximately 4.8 km.

Satellite Gravimetry: A Review of Its Realization

Since Kepler, Newton and Huygens in the seventeenth century, geodesy has been concerned with determining the figure, orientation and gravitational field of the Earth. With the beginning of the space age in 1957, a new branch of geodesy was created, satellite geodesy. Only with satellites did geodesy become truly global. Oceans were no longer obstacles and the Earth as a whole could be observed and measured in consistent series of measurements. Of particular interest is the determination of the spatial structures and finally the temporal changes of the Earth's gravitational field. The knowledge of the gravitational field represents the natural bridge to the study of the physics of the Earth's interior, the circulation of our oceans and, more recently, the climate. Today, key findings on climate change are derived from the temporal changes in the gravitational field: on ice mass loss in Greenland and Antarctica, sea level rise and generally on changes in the global water cycle. This has only become possible with dedicated gravity satellite missions opening a method known as satellite gravimetry. In the first forty years of space age, satellite gravimetry was based on the analysis of the orbital motion of satellites. Due to the uneven distribution of observatories over the globe, the initially inaccurate measuring methods and the inadequacies of the evaluation models, the reconstruction of global models of the Earth's gravitational field was a great challenge. The transition from passive satellites for gravity field determination to satellites equipped with special sensor technology, which was initiated in the last decade of the twentieth century, brought decisive progress. In the chronological sequence of the launch of such new satellites, the history, mission objectives and measuring principles of the missions CHAMP, GRACE and GOCE flown since 2000 are outlined and essential scientific results of the individual missions are highlighted. The special features of the GRACE Follow-On Mission, which was launched in 2018, and the plans for a next generation of gravity field missions are also discussed.

GRACE, time-varying gravity, Earth system dynamics and climate change

Continuous observations of temporal variations in the Earth's gravity field have recently become available at an unprecedented resolution of a few hundreds of kilometers. The gravity field is a product of the Earth's mass distribution, and these data-provided by the satellites of the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE)-can be used to study the exchange of mass both within the Earth and at its surface. Since the launch of the mission in 2002, GRACE data has evolved from being an experimental measurement needing validation from ground truth, to a respected tool for Earth scientists representing a fixed bound on the total change and is now an important tool to help unravel the complex dynamics of the Earth system and climate change. In this review, we present the mission concept and its theoretical background, discuss the data and give an overview of the major advances GRACE has provided in Earth science, with a focus on hydrology, solid Earth sciences, glaciology and oceanography.