{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,12]],"date-time":"2025-11-12T14:17:49Z","timestamp":1762957069748,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":37,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,17]],"date-time":"2023-01-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1673913600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001659","name":"Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["DFG Research Unit 2736"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["DFG Research Unit 2736"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001659","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission has provided global long-term observations of mass transport in the Earth system with applications in numerous geophysical fields. In this paper, we targeted the in-orbit performance of the GRACE key instruments, the ACCelerometers (ACC) and the MicroWave ranging Instrument (MWI). For the ACC data, we followed a transplant approach analyzing the residual accelerations from transplanted accelerations of one of the two satellites to the other. For the MWI data, we analyzed the post-fit residuals of the monthly GFZ GRACE RL06 solutions with a focus on stationarity. Based on the analyses for the two test years 2007 and 2014, we derived stochastic models for the two instruments and a combined ACC+MWI stochastic model. While all three ACC axes showed worse performance than their preflight specifications, in 2007, a better ACC performance than in 2014 was observed by a factor of 3.6 due to switched-off satellite thermal control. The GRACE MWI noise showed white noise behavior for frequencies above 10 mHz around the level of 1.5\u00d710\u22126\u00a0m\/Hz. In the combined ACC+MWI noise model, the ACC part dominated the frequencies below 10 mHz, while the MWI part dominated above 10 mHz. We applied the combined ACC+MWI stochastic models for 2007 and 2014 to the monthly GFZ GRACE RL06 processing. This improved the formal errors and resulted in a comparable noise level of the estimated gravity field parameters. Furthermore, the need for co-estimating empirical parameters was reduced.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs15030563","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,18]],"date-time":"2023-01-18T02:31:11Z","timestamp":1674009071000},"page":"563","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["In-Orbit Performance of the GRACE Accelerometers and Microwave Ranging Instrument"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4108-578X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Michael","family":"Murb\u00f6ck","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation Science, Technische Universit\u00e4t Berlin, Stra\u00dfe des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany"}]},{"given":"Petro","family":"Abrykosov","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Chair of Astronomical and Physical Geodesy, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Arcisstra\u00dfe 21, 80333 M\u00fcnchen, Germany"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4733-9242","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Christoph","family":"Dahle","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department 1: Geodesy, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam, Germany"}]},{"given":"Markus","family":"Hauk","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department 1: Geodesy, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam, Germany"},{"name":"Max-Planck-Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert-Einstein-Institute), Leibniz University Hannover, Callinstra\u00dfe 38, 30167 Hannover, Germany"},{"name":"German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute for Satellite Geodesy and Inertial Sensing, Callinstra\u00dfe 30b, 30167 Hannover, 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 (TUM), Arcisstra\u00dfe 21, 80333 M\u00fcnchen, Germany"}]},{"given":"Frank","family":"Flechtner","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation Science, Technische Universit\u00e4t Berlin, Stra\u00dfe des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany"},{"name":"Department 1: Geodesy, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam, Germany"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"358","DOI":"10.1038\/s41558-019-0456-2","article-title":"Contributions of GRACE to understanding climate change","volume":"9","author":"Tapley","year":"2019","journal-title":"Nat. Clim. Chang."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"W11517","DOI":"10.1029\/2009WR008564","article-title":"GRACE Hydrological estimates for small basins: Evaluating processing approaches on the High Plains Aquifer, USA","volume":"46","author":"Longuevergne","year":"2010","journal-title":"Water Resour. Res."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Werth, S., and G\u00fcntner, A. (2010). Calibration of a Global Hydrological Model with GRACE Data. 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