Electrostatic gravity gradiometer design for the future mission Original Research Article

Satellite gravity gradiometry has been applied in GOCE mission to obtain higher harmonics of the Earth’s gravity mapping. In-orbit results showed that the precision of GOCE gradiometry achieved a level of 10–20 mE/Hz1/2 in the bandwidth of 38–100 mHz, and the major error source came from the intrinsic noise of the core sensor electrostatic accelerometer. Two schemes for improving sensitivity of such accelerometer are presented by optimizing the parameters to reduce the dynamic range and choosing the heavier proof mass to suppress the thermal noise limited by the discharging gold wire. As a result, an accelerometer with a better resolution of 10−13 m/s2/Hz1/2 could be developed, and then a precision of 3 mE/Hz1/2, corresponding to a spatial resolution of about 78 km half wavelength, is achievable for the future satellite gradiometric mission.