Demonstration of an Interferometric Laser Ranging System for a Follow-On Gravity Mission to GRACE

NASA´s Earth Science Technology office has funded an effort to advance the technology of interferometric ranging in Low Earth Orbit. The goal of this work is to reduce risk for a follow-on gravity mission to the gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) by demonstrating performance of a heterodyne interferometric laser ranging instrument appropriate for a follow-on gravity mission to GRACE at the NASA Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6, with traceability to the ranging error budget of a strawman flight design of the interferometric ranging system.