HR: 10:35h
AN: C31D-02    [PDF]
TI: ICESAT Laser Altimeter Pointing, Ranging and Timing Calibration from Integrated Residual Analysis
AU: * Luthcke, S B
EM: Scott.B.Luthcke@nasa.gov
AF: NASA / GSFC, Space Geodesy Branch, Code 926, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Rowlands, D D
AF: NASA / GSFC, Space Geodesy Branch, Code 926, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Carabajal, C C
AF: NVI Inc., @ NASA / GSFC, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Harding, D
AF: NASA / GSFC, Space Geodesy Branch, Code 926, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Bufton, J
AF: NASA / GSFC (ret.), Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Williams, T
AF: Raytheon ITSS, 1616 McCormick Dr., Upper Marlboro, MD 20744 United States
AB: On January 12, 2003 the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) was successfully placed into orbit. The ICESat mission carries the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS), which has a primary measurement of short-pulse laser-ranging to the Earth's surface at 1064nm wavelength at a rate of 40 pulses per second. The instrument has collected precise elevation measurements of the ice sheets, sea ice roughness and thickness, ocean and land surface elevations and surface reflectivity. The accurate geolocation of GLAS's surface returns, the spots from which the laser energy reflects on the Earth's surface, is a critical issue in the scientific application of these data. Pointing, ranging, timing and orbit errors must be compensated to accurately geolocate the laser altimeter surface returns. Towards this end, the laser range observations can be fully exploited in an integrated residual analysis to accurately calibrate these geolocation/instrument parameters. ICESat laser altimeter data have been simultaneously processed as direct altimetry from ocean sweeps along with dynamic crossovers in order to calibrate pointing, ranging and timing. The calibration methodology and current calibration results are discussed along with future efforts.
DE: 1243 Space geodetic surveys
DE: 1294 Instruments and techniques
DE: 1640 Remote sensing
DE: 1694 Instruments and techniques
DE: 9805 Instruments useful in three or more fields
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting