TY - JOUR

T1 - Disturbances from Single Event Upsets in the GRACE Follow-On Laser Ranging Interferometer

AU - Misfeldt, Malte

AU - Bekal, Pallavi

AU - Müller, Vitali

AU - Heinzel, Gerhard

N1 - Funding Information: This work has been supported by: The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation, Project-ID 434617780, SFB 1464); Clusters of Excellence “QuantumFrontiers: Light and Matter at the Quantum Frontier: Foundations and Applications in Metrology” (EXC-2123, project number: 390837967); the European Space Agency in the framework of Next Generation Gravity Mission development and ESA’s third-party mission support for GRACE-FO (RFP/3–17121/21/I-DT-lr); the Max Planck Society (MPG) for future mission support (M.IF.A.QOP18108) and in the framework of the LEGACY cooperation on low-frequency gravitational-wave astronomy (M.IF.A.QOP18098).

PY - 2023/9/15

Y1 - 2023/9/15

N2 - The GRACE – Follow On (GRACE-FO) satellite mission (2018-now) hosts the novel Laser Ranging Interferometer (LRI), a technology demonstrator for proving the feasibility of laser interferometry for inter-satellite ranging measurements. The GRACE-FO mission extends the valuable climate data record of changing mass distribution in the system Earth, which was started by the original GRACE mission (2002–2017). The mass distribution can be deduced from observing changes in the distance of two low-earth orbiters employing interferometry of electromagnetic waves in the K-Band for the conventional K-Band Ranging (KBR) and in near-infrared for the novel LRI. This paper identifies possible radiation-induced Single Event Upset (SEU) events in the LRI phase measurement. We simulate the phase data processing within the Laser Ranging Processor (LRP) and use a template-based fitting approach to determine the parameters of the SEU and subtract the events from the ranging data. Over four years of LRI data, 31 of such events were identified and characterized.

AB - The GRACE – Follow On (GRACE-FO) satellite mission (2018-now) hosts the novel Laser Ranging Interferometer (LRI), a technology demonstrator for proving the feasibility of laser interferometry for inter-satellite ranging measurements. The GRACE-FO mission extends the valuable climate data record of changing mass distribution in the system Earth, which was started by the original GRACE mission (2002–2017). The mass distribution can be deduced from observing changes in the distance of two low-earth orbiters employing interferometry of electromagnetic waves in the K-Band for the conventional K-Band Ranging (KBR) and in near-infrared for the novel LRI. This paper identifies possible radiation-induced Single Event Upset (SEU) events in the LRI phase measurement. We simulate the phase data processing within the Laser Ranging Processor (LRP) and use a template-based fitting approach to determine the parameters of the SEU and subtract the events from the ranging data. Over four years of LRI data, 31 of such events were identified and characterized.

KW - Bitflip

KW - Cosmic radiation

KW - GRACE-FO

KW - LRI

KW - Laser ranging interferometer

KW - Single event upset

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85164561028&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.asr.2023.06.038

DO - 10.1016/j.asr.2023.06.038

M3 - Article

VL - 72

SP - 2259

EP - 2269

JO - Advances in space research

JF - Advances in space research

SN - 0273-1177

IS - 6

ER -