On orbit performance of the GRACE Follow-On Laser Ranging Interferometer
Abstract
The Laser Ranging Interferometer (LRI) instrument on the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Follow-On mission has provided the first laser interferometric range measurements between remote spacecraft, separated by approximately 220 km. Autonomous controls that lock the laser frequency to a cavity reference and establish the 5 degree of freedom two-way laser link between remote spacecraft succeeded on the first attempt. Active beam pointing based on differential wavefront sensing compensates spacecraft attitude fluctuations. The LRI has operated continuously without breaks in phase tracking for more than 50 days, and has shown biased range measurements similar to the primary ranging instrument based on microwaves, but with much less noise at a level of at Fourier frequencies above 100 mHz.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.1907.00104,
title = {On orbit performance of the GRACE Follow-On Laser Ranging Interferometer},
author = {Klaus Abich and Claus Braxmaier and Martin Gohlke and Josep Sanjuan and Alexander Abramovici and Brian Bachman Okihiro and David C. Barr and Maxime P. Bize and Michael J. Burke and Ken C. Clark and Glenn de Vine and Jeffrey A. Dickson and Serge Dubovitsky and William M. Folkner and Samuel Francis and Martin S. Gilbert and Mark Katsumura and William Klipstein and Kameron Larsen and Carl Christian Liebe and Jehhal Liu and Kirk McKenzie and Phillip R. Morton and Alexander T. Murray and Don J. Nguyen and Joshua A. Ravich and Daniel Shaddock and Robert Spero and Gary Spiers and Andrew Sutton and Joseph Trinh and Duo Wang and Rabi T. Wang and Brent Ware and Christopher Woodruff and Bengie Amparan and Mike A. Davis and James Howell and Micah Kruger and Lynette Lobmeyer and Robert Pierce and Gretchen Reavis and Michael Sileo and Michelle Stephens and Andreas Baatzsch and Christian Dahl and Katrin Dahl and Frank Gilles and Philipp Hager and Mark Herding and Marina Kaufer and Kolja Nicklaus and Kai Voss and Christina Bogan and Karsten Danzmann and Germán Fernández Barranco and Gerhard Heinzel and Alexander Koch and Christoph Mahrdt and Malte Misfeldt and Vitali Müller and Jens Reiche and Daniel Schütze and Benjamin Sheard and Gunnar Stede and Henry Wegener and Andreas Eckardt and Burghardt Guenther and Thomas Mangoldt and Bernd Zender and Thomas Ester and Frank Heine and Christoph Seiter and Steve Windisch and Reinhold Flatscher and Frank Flechtner and Nicolas Grossard and Jerome Hauden and Martin Hinz and Thomas Leikert and Marcus Zimmermann and Anton Lebeda and Arnold Lebeda},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.00104},
year = {2019}
}