Browsing by Author "Qin, Wenjian"

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    GRAIL lunar gravity field recovery simulations based on short-arc analysis
    (2012) Qin, Wenjian
    The Moon is a fascinating planet with a great importance to planetary science. Due to the lack of geological activities on the Moon, it keeps the historical record of the early Solar System. The knowledge gained from the evolution of the Moon can be extended to other planets. The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission is the lunar analog of the successful terrestrial Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission to unlock secrets of the Moon. It will provide data to derive the global lunar gravity field with a vast improvement on both the near side and the far side by the implementation of low-low satellite-to-satellite tracking (ll-SST) principle. Global gravity field recovery aims at deriving the spherical harmonic coefficients to represent the gravitational potential. In this thesis, the short-arc approach is applied and discussed for GRAIL simulation studies.