| Issue |
A&A
Volume 699, July 2025
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | A318 | |
| Number of page(s) | 12 | |
| Section | Planets, planetary systems, and small bodies | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202554439 | |
| Published online | 16 July 2025 | |
Evaluating the contribution of Tianwen-4 mission to Jupiter’s gravity field estimation using inter-satellite tracking
1
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University,
Wuhan,
China
2
Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Urumqi
830011,
China
3
Geodesy Observatory of Tahiti, University of French Polynesia,
BP 6570, Faa’a, Tahiti
98702,
French Polynesia,
France
★ Corresponding author: jgyan@whu.edu.cn
Received:
9
March
2025
Accepted:
13
June
2025
Context. The upcoming Chinese Tianwen-4 mission, featuring both primary and secondary satellites, promises to significantly enhance our understanding of Jupiter’s gravity field. We provide here a comprehensive evaluation of its contribution to modeling of Jupiter’s gravity field.
Aims. This study investigates the potential contribution of the Tianwen-4 mission to the estimation of Jupiter’s gravity field and the tidal effects knm associated with the Galilean moons by incorporating spacecraft-to-spacecraft tracking (SST) alongside traditional two-way (2W) observations.
Methods. We analyze various observational factors, such as orbital altitudes, noise levels, data durations, and tidal responses, to evaluate their impact on gravity field estimation accuracy.
Results. Our analysis demonstrates that the combined 2W and SST mode enhances the precision of gravity field estimates by up to an order of magnitude, reducing formal errors, and improving spatial resolution compared to the 2W mode alone, even when using shorter arcs data. Furthermore, the combined mode yields a superior performance in the estimation of Love numbers, with lower orbital altitudes and longer data collection periods further improving accuracy, despite introducing operational challenges.
Conclusions. The enhanced sensitivity and accuracy provided by the SST configuration offer valuable insights into Jupiter’s internal structure and dynamics, thereby guiding the design of future missions aimed at maximizing scientific returns.
Key words: gravitation / methods: data analysis / space vehicles / celestial mechanics / planets and satellites: gaseous planets / planets and satellites: individual: Jupiter
© The Authors 2025
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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