Microscope Instrument Development,Lessons for GOCE |
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Authors: | Touboul Pierre |
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Institution: | (1) Physical Instrumentation Department, ONERA, F-92322 Chatillon Cedex, France ( |
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Abstract: | Two space missions are presently under development with payload based on ultra-sensitive electrostatic accelerometers. The
GOCE mission takes advantage of a three axis gradiometer accommodated in a very stable thermal case on board a drag-free satellite
orbiting at a very low altitude of 250 km. This ESA mission will perform the very highly accurate mapping of the Earth gravity
field with a geographical resolution of 100 km. The MICROSCOPE mission is devoted to the test of the “Universality of free
fall” in view of the verification of the Einstein Equivalence Principle (EP) and of the search of a new interaction. The MICROSCOPE
instrument is composed of two pairs of differential electrostatic accelerometers and the accelerometer proof-masses are the
bodies of the EP test. The satellite is also a drag-free satellite exhibiting a fine attitude control and in a certain way,
each differential accelerometer is a one axis gradiometer with an arm of quite null length. The development of this instrument
much interests the definition and the evaluation of the sensor cores of the gradiometer. The in flight calibration process
of both instruments is also very similar. Lessons form these parallel developments are presented.
This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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