Intersatellite laser ranging instrument for the GRACE follow-on mission

Date

2012

Authors

Sheard, Benjamin
Heinzel, G
Danzmann, Karsten
Shaddock, Daniel
Klipstein, William
Folkner, William

Journal Title

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Volume Title

Publisher

Springer

Abstract

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) has demonstrated that low-low satellite-to-satellite tracking enables monitoring the time variations of the Earth's gravity field on a global scale, in particular those caused by mass-transport within the hydrosphere. Due to the importance of long-term continued monitoring of the variations of the Earth's gravitational field and the limited lifetime of GRACE, a follow-on mission is currently planned to be launched in 2017. In order to minimise risk and the time to launch, the follow-on mission will be basically a rebuild of GRACE with microwave ranging as the primary instrument for measuring changes of the intersatellite distance. Laser interferometry has been proposed as a method to achieve improved ranging precision for future GRACE-like missions and is therefore foreseen to be included as demonstrator experiment in the follow-on mission now under development. This paper presents the top-level architecture of an interferometric laser ranging system designed to demonstrate the technology which can also operate in parallel with the microwave ranging system of the GRACE follow-on mission.

Description

Keywords

Keywords: GRACE; gravimetry; gravity field; interferometry; satellite laser ranging; tracking GRACE; Intersatellite ranging; Laser interferometry

Citation

Source

Journal of Geodesy

Type

Journal article

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