GRACE-I: A joint US-German mission for continued mass transport monitoring and enabling global biodiversity monitoring
1,3,1,1,3,- 1Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Geodesy and Remote Sensing, Wessling, Germany (frank.flechtner@gfz-potsdam.de)
- 2Max-Planck-Institute for Gravitational Physics, Hannover, Germany
- 3TU Berlin, Institute for Geodesy and Geoinformation Science, Germany
- 4German Space Agency at DLR, Department Earth Observation, Germany
NASA´s Earth Science Decadal Survey Report highlights mass transport monitoring as one of top priorities in Earth Observation for the next decade. To realize such a Mass Change Mission (MCM), NASA is seeking international partnership. Based on the large success of the GRACE and GRACE-FO missions and their contributions to climate change research, there is a large interest in Germany to continue mass change measurements.
GFZ and the German Space Agency at DLR have suggested a “GRACE-I” mission which is based on a GRACE-like concept combined with an optional ICARUS (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) payload. In continuation of a 9 months Phase 0 study in 2021 this concept is currently investigated in Phase A (April – September 2022) with significant support of JPL/NASA as a future continuation of the very successful US-German GRACE/GRACE-FO technological and scientific partnership.
GRACE-I will be a single satellite pair based on a fully redundant Laser Ranging Interferometer on a polar orbit at 500 km altitude. Launch shall be not later than 2027 to guarantee data continuity w.r.t. GRACE-FO. GRACE-I could be a first component (P1) of a hybrid Bender constellation if combined with an inclined MAGIC pair (P2). The realization of this Mass-change And Geoscience International Constellation is currently discussed between ESA and NASA. P2 will fly on a lower orbit than P1 and will be based on advanced instrumentation. Therefore, Phase A also investigated the option to add one or two adapted MicroStar accelerometers to the baseline GRACE-FO like accelerometer on each P1 satellite as a technology demonstrator for P2.
At the time of writing this abstract the main focus was on the final steps to refine the technical design and to select the final payload configuration for a US/German MCM/GRACE-I mission. We will present the proposed mission architecture and will discuss further steps towards realization of MCM/GRACE-I.
How to cite: Flechtner, F., Dahle, C., Hauk, M., Wilms, J., Murböck, M., Nyenhuis, M., and Schaadt, P.: GRACE-I: A joint US-German mission for continued mass transport monitoring and enabling global biodiversity monitoring, GRACE/GRACE-FO Science Team Meeting 2022, Potsdam, Germany, 18–20 Oct 2022, GSTM2022-13, https://doi.org/10.5194/gstm2022-13, 2022.
