From kinematic orbit determination to derivation of satellite velocity and gravity field

Abstract

After an overview of approaches and results in precise orbit determination (POD) for the CHAMP satellite in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) we focus on the relations between kinematic POD and gravity field determination. We discuss determination of kinematic velocities out of kinematic positions that enter the gravity field determination in the form of kinetic orbital energy. After testing several numerical differentiation techniques, we selected conceptually two alternative methods, the Newton-Gregory interpolation and the smoothing cubic spline function. Finally, performance of numerical differentiation techniques for the CHAMP orbit is presented based on the gravity field determination. © 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.