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Abstract:
We proposed an approach to directly measure the gravitational potential (GP) along the orbit of a satellite, especially for the Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite. The LEO satellite is connected with several Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit (GEO) satellites through frequency signal links. Arming all the LEO and GEO satellites with precise atomic clocks, the GP difference between LEO and GEO can be measured at any time based on the gravity frequency shift approach. Supposing that the GP of GEO satellites is given, then the GP along the orbit of the LEO satellite can be determined. In this study, we conducted simulation experiments, considering the GRACE-type satellite as the LEO satellite, connected with three evenly distributed GEO satellites. The results show that the precision of the obtained GP along the orbit of the LEO satellite is mainly determined by the precision of onboard atomic clocks. If optical atomic clocks reach an instability level of 1×10−17τ−1/2 (τ in second), the gravitational potential along the orbit of the LEO satellite can be determined at the decimeter level with a resolution of 5'×5'. The GP information along the orbit of an LEO satellite is valuable, for it can be utilized to improve the Earth’s gravity models. This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant Nos. 42030105, 41721003, 42274011), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
