The Use of Energy Balance Relations for Validation of Gravity Field Models and Orbit Determination Results

There is a need for a proper validation procedure of gravity field solutions, especially for those high precise ones which are derived from the dedicated gravity field missions as CHAMP, GRACE and in future GOCE. In this paper the balance equations for the energy and for the energy exchange of a satellite orbiting around the Earth are proposed as analysis tool to validate gravity field solutions together with orbits derived with precise reduced dynamic or kinematic orbit determination procedures. The theoretical foundation of the analysis tool is presented as well as simulation results and applications to real orbits of a GPS satellite and of CHAMP based on various gravity field solutions. It is shown that the validation procedure can be used to detect deficiencies in the orbit modelling and in gravity field recovery results.