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Earth rotation from radio interferometric tracking of GPS satellites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2017

R. I. Abbot ,
R. W. King ,
Y. Bock  and
C. C. Counselman III
R. I. Abbot
Affiliation:
Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
R. W. King
Affiliation:
Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
Y. Bock
Affiliation:
Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
C. C. Counselman III
Affiliation:
Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139

Abstract

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Radio-interferometric tracking of the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites offers a new technique for regular monitoring of variations in the earth's rotation. The observations are sensitive to pole position and length-of-day, at a level of precision which may make this technique competitive with satellite and lunar laser ranging and very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). The present limitations are the number of satellites and tracking stations available and inadequate modeling of non-gravitational forces on the satellites. The potential advantages are rapid turn-around and minimal incremental cost. We have performed a preliminary analysis using six days of observations from a four-station network. Comparison of earth rotation values from our GPS analysis with values obtained by VLBI and laser ranging reveals differences after five days of 0.9 ms in UT1, 0.04″ in x and 0.07″ in y. These differences reflect errors in the GPS determinations due primarily to inadequate modeling of non-gravitational forces.

Type
III. Determination of Earth Rotation Parameters
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 128: Earth's Rotation and Reference Frames for Geodesy and Geodynamics , 1988 , pp. 209 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1988 

References

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