AN INVERSE PROBLEM IN PLANETARY GEODESY

The gravity data coming from spacecraft in orbit around the planets of our solar system are radio Doppler tracking observations which can be reduced to line of sight (LOS, the line joining the probe and the observer) gravity data. We analyse the spectral properties of the integral operator that links these LOS gravity data to a better known geodetic quantity, the radial gravity perturbations. We build the regularized inverse operator that corresponds to the real physical problem and we give an example in the case of the planet Venus.