HR: 10:35h
AN: G42A-02    [Abstracts]
TI: The Contribution of Starlette/Stella SLR to Terrestrial Reference Frame Definition
AU: Govind, R
EM: Ramesh.Govind@ga.gov.au
AF: Geoscience Australia, GPO Box 378, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
AU: * Lemoine, F
EM: Frank.G.Lemoine@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Planetary Geodynamics Laboratory, Code698, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AU: Altamimi, Z
EM: altamimi@ensg.ign.fr
AF: IGN/LAREG, 6-8 Avenue Blaise Pascale, Champs sur Marne, 77455, France
AU: Le Bail, K
EM: karinelebail@gmail.com
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Planetary Geodynamics Laboratory, Code698, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AU: Le Bail, K
EM: karinelebail@gmail.com
AF: IGN/LAREG, 6-8 Avenue Blaise Pascale, Champs sur Marne, 77455, France
AU: Le Bail, K
EM: karinelebail@gmail.com
AF: Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur/GEMINI, Avenue Nicolas Copernic, Grasse, 06130, France
AU: Le Bail, K
EM: karinelebail@gmail.com
AF: Goddard Earth Science and Technology Center, UMBC, Baltimore, MD 21228, United States
AU: Chinn, D
EM: douglas.chinn@gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: SGT Inc., 7701 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20770, United States
AB: The Lageos-1 (L1) and Lageos-2 (L2) satellites have formed the basis of the ILRS contribution to the ITRF2005. These geodetic cannonball satellites, launched in 1976, and 1992 respectively are well suited for this purpose, by virtue of their high altitude, and lack of sensitivity to either high degree gravity terms or the deleterious effects of atmospheric drag. However, some SLR tracking stations have only limited tracking of the L1 and L2 satellites, with the result that these stations are not well determined in ITRF2005. In addition, we note that the results of analysis of the DORIS contribution to ITRF2005 indicated that the quality of the station positioning was directly proportional to the number of satellites in each weekly solution [Altamimi et al., JoG, 2006]. Therefore, in this paper we test the contribution of additional satellites to SLR-only weekly reference frame solutions. We analyze the SLR data to the Stella (STL) and Starlette (STA) satellites for the period from 1993 to 2006, and first perform a detailed analysis to assess the optimum arc parameterization in order to minimize orbit error, taking advantage of the new high-resolution gravity and ocean tide models that have been developed as a result of the GRACE, TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason missions. We then compare and contrast three series of SINEX solutions: L1+L2 only, STL+STA only, and a four-satellite combination based on L1+L2+STL+STA. We compare the quality of the weekly station position, the geocenter and scale estimates and assess whether there is any improvement or degradation in the estimated EOP.
DE: 1229 Reference systems
DE: 1240 Satellite geodesy: results (6929, 7215, 7230, 7240)
DE: 1241 Satellite geodesy: technical issues (6994, 7969)
DE: 1244 Standards and absolute measurements
DE: 1294 Instruments and techniques
SC: Geodesy [G]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting