Abstract: The GOCE mission, as the first dedicated gravity gradiometry satellite, has significantly improved the accuracy and spatial resolution of global gravity field models. However, the performance of its electrostatic accelerometer-based gradiometer is limited by low-frequency thermal drift and scale-factor instability, which restrict further improvements in gravity field recovery and the broader application of gravity gradiometry observations. Recent advances in next-generation sensors, including cold atom interferometry (CAI) accelerometers, hybrid accelerometers (HyACC), and MicroSTAR multi-axis accelerometers, provide new opportunities for enhancing future satellite gravity gradiometry missions. Although previous simulation studies have demonstrated the potential of these technologies, the comprehensive effects of multi-source errors and the relative performance of different gradiometer configurations have not yet been fully quantified. This study establishes a unified closed-loop numerical simulation framework to characterize multi-source error impacts and evaluate the gravity field recovery capability of next-generation gravity gradiometers. The analysis reveals that the HyACC4 configuration achieves the best overall performance, reducing the cumulative geoid error at degree 200 by 63.44% relative to GOCE. The CAI gradiometer and six-component MicroSTAR configuration achieve corresponding reductions of 57.24% and 51.69%, respectively, with the six-component MicroSTAR configuration outperforming the corresponding three-component configuration. The results further demonstrate that the performance of next-generation gradiometers is determined not only by accelerometer noise characteristics but also by the frequency-dependent propagation of multiple error sources. These findings provide a systematic understanding of the error characteristics and performance capabilities of next-generation gravity gradiometers, offering quantitative guidance for payload selection, configuration optimization, and future satellite gravity mission design.