CHAMP gravity field recovery using the energy balance approach

Abstract. Since the early days of satellite geodesy energy balance based methods for gravity field determination have been considered. If non-conservative forces are known the Hamiltonian along the orbit is a constant of the motion. Thus the gravity field can be determined if position and velocity of the satellite are known and accelerometer measurements are available to model the non-conservative part. CHAMP is the first satellite that provides the user with those three kinds of data nearly continuously. Numerical investigations using real CHAMP data are presented to show the feasibility of the method. Using a semi-analytical approach the gravity field can be determined efficiently by a 2D-Fourier method. Those fast computations also give way to application of the method not only to a full gravity field recovery but also, e.g. for quick-look and validation of SST observations for satellite missions like CHAMP, GRACE or GOCE. The method can also be used for estimation of accelerometer calibration parameters.

Key words. gravity field, energy balance, Jacobi-integral, non-conservative forces, accelerometer calibration, CHAMP