SENSORIS: NewSpace Constellation for Daily Gravity Field Solutions

Satellite gravimetry missions allow to track mass transport on global scales. The main satellite constellations for the gravity recovery are the GRACE and GRACE Follow-On missions. Typically, they provide monthly gravity field solutions which at times is suffering from data gaps. The future MAGIC constellation shall continue the time series and improve especially the spatial sampling with a possible improvement of the temporal sampling to 5 days. For higher temporal resolutions, new mission concepts are required.
One such concept is the SENSORIS constellation: It aims to provide daily solutions of the Earth’s gravity field using a NewSpace approach for faster, cheaper and more flexible data acquisition for research, security and resource management.
Since December of 2025, a Phase 0/A study is being conducted through a grant of the German Space Agency (DLR) by three North German research institutions: the IAT Institute of Aerospace Technology Bremen, the ZARM of University of Bremen and the DLR Institute for Satellite Geodesy and Inertial Sensing Hanover. As part of the study, the mission configuration will be evaluated regarding its feasibility. The baseline foresees the use of identical satellites based on VIBES Pioneer, a 3U CubeSat currently under development at the IAT. Using the positional data of each spacecraft, the Earth’s gravity field can be derived. While the provided solutions will have an inferior spatial resolution compared to the results of the GRACE missions, it will be possible to achieve one full solution per day.
The paper presents the preliminary findings of the study, with a specific focus on the spacecraft architecture, the orbit configuration, the exact number of satellites per orbital plane required to achieve daily solutions as well as the overall performance of the SENSORIS constellation. Additionally, the roadmap for the implementation of the mission is discussed.