MGN V RSS LINE OF SIGHT ACCELERATION PROFILES V1.13

Line of Sight Acceleration Profile Data Records (LOSAPDR) consist of data from Doppler tracking of the orbiting spacecraft. The relative motion of the spacecraft and the earth-based radio receiver is measured very precisely, and known motions are removed a priori (i.e. earth rotation, planetary motions, spacecraft orbital motion, solar pressure, drag), leaving small velocity changes caused by variations in the mass distribution of the planet. The residual Doppler frequency shifts are linearly proportional to the component of velocity in the Earth direction. Numerical differentiation of these velocity residuals with respect to time produces line-of-sight (LOS) gravity. These measures are accelerations at spacecraft altitude which can be modeled for geophysical interpretation. For information on Magellan gravity investigations see papers in [ICARUSMGN1994].