Evaluation of Empirical Atmospheric Models Using Swarm-C Satellite Data

Abstract

Swarm-C satellite, a new instrument for atmospheric study, has been the focus of many studies to evaluate its usage and accuracy. This paper takes the Swarm-C satellite as a research object to verify the Swarm-C accelerometer’s inversion results. This paper uses the two-row orbital elements density inversion to verify the atmospheric density accuracy results of the Swarm-C satellite accelerometer. After the accuracy of the satellite data is verified, this paper conducts comparative verification and empirical atmospheric model evaluation experiments based on the Swarm-C accelerometer’s inversion results. After comparing with the inversion results of the Swarm-C semi-major axis attenuation method, it is found that the atmospheric density obtained by inversion using the Swarm-C accelerometer is more dynamic and real-time. It shows that with more available data, the Swarm-C satellite could be a new high-quality instrument for related studies along with the well-established satellites. After evaluating the performance of the JB2008 and NRLMSISE-00 empirical atmospheric models using the Swarm-C accelerometer inversion results, it is found that the accuracy and real-time performance of the JB2008 model at the altitude where the Swarm-C satellite is located are better than the NRLMSISE-00 model.

Keywords

• atmospheric density estimation
• empirical atmosphere model
• Swarm-C
• semi-major axis attenuation method