Global gravity field recovery using solely GPS tracking and accelerometer data from CHAMP

A new long-wavelength global gravity field model, called EIGEN-1, has been derived in a joint German-French effort from orbit perturbations of the CHAMP satellite, exploiting CHAMP-GPS satellite-to-satellite tracking and on-board accelerometer data over a three months time span. For the first time it becomes possible to recover the gravity field from one satellite only. Thanks to CHAMP's tailored orbit characteristics and dedicated instrumentation, providing continuous tracking and on-orbit measurements of non-gravitational satellite accelerations, the three months CHAMP-only solution provides the geoid and gravity with an accuracy of 20 em and 1 mgal, respectively, at a half wavelength resolution of 550 km, which is already an improvement by a factor of two compared to any pre-CHAMP satellite-only gravity field model.