Improved High-Resolution Lunar Gravity Field Model From SELENE and Historical Tracking Data

Details Improved High-Resolution Lunar Gravity Field Model From SELENE and Historical Tracking Data Improved High-Resolution Lunar Gravity Field Model From SELENE and Historical Tracking Data

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p44b..05g&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P44B-05

Computer Science

Performance

[1221] Geodesy And Gravity / Lunar And Planetary Geodesy And Gravity, [1240] Geodesy And Gravity / Satellite Geodesy: Results, [5417] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Gravitational Fields, [6250] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Moon

Scientific paper

The Kaguya (SELENE) mission (September 2007 - June 2009) consisted of three separate satellites, which were tracked by a variety of terrestrial based tracking systems for the purpose of precision orbit determination and lunar gravity field determination. In addition to standard two-way Doppler and range tracking, Kaguya also carried out 4-way Doppler tracking between the sub-satellite Rstar and the main orbiter while the latter was over the far side of the Moon, and differential VLBI tracking between the two sub-satellites Rstar and Vstar. Kaguya data have been combined with historical tracking data of lunar orbiters (up to Lunar Prospector), and this has resulted in lunar gravity field models expressed in spherical harmonics up to a maximum resolution of degree and order 100. These models mapped the far side gravity field of the Moon for the first time, and helped improve the estimates of the lower degrees. Here, we present an improved, high-resolution lunar gravity field model, expressed in spherical harmonics up to degree and order 150. Our analysis differs in several crucial aspects from our previous models: we have now included the complete Lunar Prospector tracking data set, including data from the extended mission; we also included switching differential VLBI data instead of same-beam data only, which helps to further improve the orbit precision of both sub-satellites; and we extended the arc lengths of both Lunar Prospector (nominal mission only, from 2 days to 4 days, by virtue of having mapped the far side gravity field) and the main satellite of Kaguya (from 12 hours to arc lengths varying between 2 days and 1 week, by virtue of careful modelling of the angular momentum desaturation manoeuvres). The result is a model with smaller formal errors for the lower degrees, and an especially improved orbit prediction performance. Orbit propagation from an initial two-day data arc, at an average altitude of 50 km, results in orbit errors of 110 m after one month, whereas previous lunar gravity models of the same expansion produce orbit errors of 500 m and larger. Improvements are especially seen in the along-track component. With the far side gravity field included, we expect that this model is especially useful for the upcoming GRAIL mission.

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