{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,9]],"date-time":"2026-03-09T08:20:45Z","timestamp":1773044445101,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":48,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,3,4]],"date-time":"2020-03-04T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1583280000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000844","name":"European Space Agency","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["AO\/1\u20137317\/12\/NL\/AF"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["AO\/1\u20137317\/12\/NL\/AF"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000844","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The goal of next-generation gravity missions (NGGM) is to improve the monitoring of mass transport in the Earth system by an increased space-time sampling capability as well as higher accuracies of a new generation of instrumentation, but also to continue the monitoring time series obtained by past and current missions such as GRACE and GRACE Follow-On. As the likelihood of three satellite pairs being simultaneously in orbit in the mid-term future increased, we have performed a closed-loop simulation to investigate the impact of a third pair in either polar or inclined orbit as an addition to a Bender-type constellation with NGGM instrumentation. For the additional pair, GRACE-like as well as NGGM instrumentation was tested. The analysis showed that the third pair mainly increases the redundancy of the monitoring system but does not significantly improve de-aliasing capabilities. The best-performing triple-pair scenario comprises a third inclined pair with NGGM sensors. Starting with a Bender-type constellation of a polar and an inclined satellite pair, simulation results indicate an average improvement of 11% in case of adding the third pair in a near-polar orbit, and of 21% for the third pair placed in an inclined orbit. The most important advantage of a multi-pair constellation, however, is the possibility to recover daily gravity fields with higher spatial resolution. In the case of the investigated triple-pair scenarios, a meaningful daily resolution with a maximum spherical harmonic degree of 26 can be achieved, while a higher daily parametrization up to degree 40 results in spatial aliasing and thus would need additional constraints or prior information.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12050831","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,3,4]],"date-time":"2020-03-04T10:46:08Z","timestamp":1583318768000},"page":"831","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Triple-Pair Constellation Configurations for Temporal Gravity Field Retrieval"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1116-1398","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Anna F.","family":"Purkhauser","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Chair of Astronomical and Physical Geodesy, Technical University of Munich, Arcisstra\u00dfe 21, 80333 Munich, Germany"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4364-4012","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Roland","family":"Pail","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Chair of Astronomical and Physical Geodesy, Technical University of Munich, Arcisstra\u00dfe 21, 80333 Munich, Germany"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,3,4]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Marson, I., and S\u00fcnkel, H. 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