The impact of the new Earth gravity models on the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect with a new satellite

TL;DR

This paper explores how new Earth gravity models from CHAMP and GRACE missions enable a more cost-effective satellite-based measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect by using a low-altitude satellite and combining its data with existing satellites.

Contribution

It proposes a novel satellite configuration and data combination method that reduces costs and systematic errors in measuring the Lense-Thirring effect.

Findings

Systematic error due to gravity model uncertainties is about 1%.

The new satellite can be placed in a lower, cheaper orbit without compromising accuracy.

Non-gravitational perturbations are negligible at the proposed orbit.

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the opportunities offered by the new Earth gravity models from the dedicated CHAMP and, especially, GRACE missions to the project of measuring the general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect with a new Earth's artificial satellite. It turns out that it would be possible to abandon the stringent, and expensive, requirements on the orbital geometry of the originally prosed LARES mission (same semimajor axis a=12270 km of the existing LAGEOS and inclination i=70 deg) by inserting the new spacecraft in a relatively low, and cheaper, orbit (a=7500-8000 km, i\sim 70 deg) and suitably combining its node Omega with those of LAGEOS and LAGEOS II in order to cancel out the first even zonal harmonic coefficients of the multipolar expansion of the terrestrial gravitational potential J_2, J_4 along with their temporal variations. The total systematic error due to the mismodelling in the remaining even zonal harmonics would amount to \sim 1% and would be insensitive to departures of the inclination from the originally proposed value of many degrees. No semisecular long-period perturbations would be introduced because the period of the node, which is also the period of the solar K_1 tidal perturbation, would amount to \sim 10^2 days. Since the coefficient of the node of the new satellite would be smaller than 0.1 for such low altitudes, the impact of the non-gravitational perturbations of it on the proposed combination would be negligible. Then, a particular financial and technological effort for suitably building the satellite in order to minimize the non-conservative accelerations would be unnecessary.