Publications related to the GRACE Missions (no abstracts)

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Joint optimization of a GRACE radiation pressure model, the accelerometer scale factors, and an empirical magnetic–field–induced accelerometer bias

Jacobs, F., Hładczuk, N., van den IJssel, J., Siemes, C., and Visser, P., 2026. Joint optimization of a GRACE radiation pressure model, the accelerometer scale factors, and an empirical magnetic–field–induced accelerometer bias. Advances in Space Research, 77(12):12096–12121, doi:10.1016/j.asr.2026.04.043.

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@ARTICLE{2026AdSpR..7712096J,
       author = {{Jacobs}, F. and {H{\l}adczuk}, N. and {van den IJssel}, J. and {Siemes}, C. and {Visser}, P.},
        title = "{Joint optimization of a GRACE radiation pressure model, the accelerometer scale factors, and an empirical magnetic-field-induced accelerometer bias}",
      journal = {Advances in Space Research},
     keywords = {GRACE, Accelerometer scale factors, Radiation pressure modeling, Magnetic-field-induced accelerometer bias},
         year = 2026,
        month = jun,
       volume = {77},
       number = {12},
        pages = {12096-12121},
     abstract = "{Valuable insights into the thermospheric mass density and horizontal
        winds can be obtained from satellites equipped with
        accelerometers. To derive these quantities, radiation pressure
        must be accurately modeled and removed from the calibrated
        accelerometer measurements. However, the documented surface
        reflection and absorption coefficients, as well as the
        satellite's thermal properties, are often inaccurate or, in some
        cases, even absent. This study presents a method for optimizing
        these parameters jointly with the accelerometer scale factors.
        Focusing on GRACE data from 2009, a case where radiation
        pressure was dominant over aerodynamic force, enabled us to
        refine the radiation pressure model without detrimental effects
        from errors in aerodynamic force modeling. We evaluated three
        variants of estimating the scale factor: estimating no
        accelerometer scale factors, only the y-axis scale factor, or
        both the y- and z-axis scale factors. We use the difference
        between the measured and modeled accelerations (the residual) as
        our target functional. Estimating both scale factors yielded the
        lowest residual for both GRACE satellites, even though the
        radiation pressure model was tuned using GRACE-A data only.
        After the optimization, we observed a systematic feature in the
        cross-track residuals within the geographical domain, which
        strongly correlates with the magnetic field vector experienced
        by the spacecraft. While its cause remains unknown, we
        introduced an empirical correction that effectively removed the
        feature and significantly increased consistency between GRACE-A
        and GRACE-B. Overall, we were able to reduce the RMS of the
        residuals by more than 13\% in the cross-track direction and
        32\% in the radial direction, indicating a significant increase
        in modeling accuracy. The presented method provides a
        generalizable approach that can also be applied to future
        satellite missions with accelerometers.}",
          doi = {10.1016/j.asr.2026.04.043},
       adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026AdSpR..7712096J},
      adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}

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