G. Moreaux et al., A harmonic spline model for local estimation of planetary gravity fields from line-of-sight acceleration data, J GEODESY, 73(3), 1999, pp. 130-137
The spline interpolation technique is applied to estimate locally the radia
l component of a planetary gravity field from residual acceleration data al
ong a special direction, the direction of observation from the Earth. After
the presentation of the theoretical framework, the method is tested on syn
thetic and real data in the case of Venus. It is shown that this spline tec
hnique can be used succesfully to build local models of radial gravity fiel
ds at the planet surface.