Search

This paper summarizes the contribution of Polish scientific units to the development of the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) in recent years. We discuss the issues related to the integration of space geodetic techniques and co-location in space onboard Global Navigation Satellites Systems (GNSS) and Low Earth Orbiters (LEO), as well as perspectives introduced by the new European Space Agency's (ESA) mission GENESIS. We summarize recent developments in terms of the European Galileo system and its contribution to satellite geodesy and general relativity, as well as ESA's recent initiative - Moonlight to establish a satellite navigation and communication system for the Moon. Recent progress in troposphere delay modeling in Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) allowed for better handling of systematic errors in SLR, such as range biases and tropospheric biases. We discuss enhanced tropospheric delay models for SLR based on numerical weather models with empirical corrections, which improve the consistency between space geodetic parameters derived using different techniques, such as SLR, GNSS, and Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). Finally, we review recent progress in the development of Polish GGOS scientific infrastructure in the framework of the European Plate Observing System project EPOS-PL+. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric pressure loading plays a crucial role in precise space geodesy, thus its omission, especially the nontidal loading (ANTL) part, leads to the inconsistency between solutions based on the microwave [Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)] and optical [satellite laser ranging (SLR)] observations. SLR observations are performed only during the cloudless conditions coincident with high values of air pressure that deforms the earth’s crust downward. The systematic shift of the estimated SLR station coordinates, which arises from the ANTL omission, is called the Blue-Sky effect. The offset is related to the long-term averaging of ANTL for SLR observations which are provided in sparse intervals, unlike GNSS, which observes continuously. Based on the ANTL model applied on SLR observations to GNSS, we determined the values of the Blue-Sky effect. The largest values of the Blue-Sky effect are observed for the inland stations, i.e., 2.3, 2.1, 2.0, and 1.9 mm for Svetloe, Potsdam, Baikonur, and Altay, respectively. We also investigate the impact of the omission of ANTL corrections on geodetic parameters, i.e., earth rotation parameters, geocenter motion, precise GNSS orbits, as well as on the global SLR network. The negligence of ANTL causes a systematic effect on geocenter coordinates with the amplitude of the annual signal at the level of 1.9 mm for the Z-component. The omission of ANTL corrections causes also a systematic shift of the multi-GNSS orbit constellation with the amplitude of the annual signal at the level of 2.7 mm for the Z-component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]