<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Different gravitational force models are used for determining the satellites’ orbits. The satellite gravity gradiometry (SGG) data contain this gravitational information and the satellite accelerations can be determined from them. In this study, we present that amongst the elements of the gravitational tensor in the local north-oriented frame, all of the elements are suitable for this purpose except Txy. Three integral formulae with the same kernel function are presented for recovering the accelerations from the SGG data. The kernel of these integrals is well-behaving which means that the contribution of the far-zone data is not very significant to their integration results; but this contribution is also dependent on the type of the data being integrated. Our numerical studies show that the standard deviations of the differences between the accelerations recovered from Tzz, Txz and Tzy and those computed by an existing Earth´s gravity model reduce by increasing the cap size of integration. However, their root mean squared errors increase for recovering Ty from Tyz. Larger cap sizes than 5 on is recommended for recovering Tx and Tz but smaller ones for Ty.</abstract>

Different gravitational force models are used for determining the satellites’ orbits. The satellite gravity gradiometry (SGG) data contain this gravitational information and the satellite accelerations can be determined from them. In this study, we present that amongst the elements of the gravitational tensor in the local north-oriented frame, all of the elements are suitable for this purpose except Txy. Three integral formulae with the same kernel function are presented for recovering the accelerations from the SGG data. The kernel of these integrals is well-behaving which means that the contribution of the far-zone data is not very significant to their integration results; but this contribution is also dependent on the type of the data being integrated. Our numerical studies show that the standard deviations of the differences between the accelerations recovered from Tzz, Txz and Tzy and those computed by an existing Earth´s gravity model reduce by increasing the cap size of integration. However, their root mean squared errors increase for recovering Ty from Tyz. Larger cap sizes than 5 on is recommended for recovering Tx and Tz but smaller ones for Ty.

From Tensor to Vector of Gravitation

Department of Engineering Science, University West, Trollhättan, Sweden

Artificial Satellites

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

{"article-title":"From Tensor to Vector of Gravitation"}

Different gravitational force models are used for determining the satellites’ orbits. The satellite gravity gradiometry (SGG) data contain this gravitational...

From Tensor to Vector of Gravitation

Published Online: Jun 06, 2014

Page range: 63 - 80

Received: Feb 28, 2014

Accepted: Mar 21, 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/arsa-2014-0006

© Artificial Satellites

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.