Abstract:

The GRACE mission has delivered gravity fields of unprecedented accuracy up to now. However, the current gravity field performance does not fully meet the baseline accuracy defined pre-launch. In order to determine possible reasons for this discrepancy, the data processing from the high rate L1a data to the low rate L1b data has been investigated. The analysis is restrained to the K-Band, the star sensor and the accelerometer data. As a first step, the official algorithm specification provided by JPL and CSR has been implemented. The results for the accelerometer data show the biggest compliance, followed by the results for the K-Band system and the star sensors. Occuring differences are discussed and an outlook on the future activities is given.