Effects of in-track maneuver on Sun illumination conditions of near-circular low Earth orbits

By developing approximate analytical models considering the J₂ perturbation, the effects of an in-track maneuver on the orbital Sun illumination conditions of near-circular low Earth orbits are analyzed. First, two approximate models for the variations in orbital sunshine angles are developed, one for variations at a given time and the other for variations at a given argument of latitude. Next, two approximate models for variations in orbital arc in Earth shadow are developed, one considers the small eccentricity and the other uses the zero eccentricity. Finally, the developed approximate models are applied to analyzing the Sun illumination conditions of a typical in-track maneuver mission on a near-circular low Earth orbit. From the results obtained, three major conclusions can be drawn. First, the variations in orbital sunshine angles at a given time may reach tens of degrees when the drifting time reaches hundreds of orbital periods, and the approximate model for that situation cannot effectively approach the numerical results. Second, the variations in orbital sunshine angles for any given argument of latitude are only a couple of degrees even when the drifting time reaches 500 orbital periods, and the approximation model developed can effectively approach the numerical results. Third, for variations in orbital arc in Earth shadow, the approximate model considering the small eccentricity has simple expressions and can effectively approach the numerical results; in contrast, the approximate model using the zero eccentricity has relatively worse precision.     

The International DORIS Service (IDS): Toward maturity

DORIS is one of the four space-geodetic techniques participating in the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS), particularly to maintain and disseminate the Terrestrial Reference Frame as determined by International Earth rotation and Reference frame Service (IERS). A few years ago, under the umbrella of the International Association of Geodesy, a DORIS International Service (IDS) was created in order to foster international cooperation and to provide new scientific products. This paper addresses the organizational aspects of the IDS and presents some recent DORIS scientific results. It is for the first time that, in preparation of the ITRF2008, seven Analysis Centers (AC’s) contributed to derive long-term time series of DORIS stations positions. These solutions were then combined into a homogeneous time series IDS-2 for which a precision of less than 10 mm was obtained. Orbit comparisons between the various AC’s showed an excellent agreement in the radial component, both for the SPOT satellites (e.g. 0.5–2.1 cm RMS for SPOT-2) and Envisat (0.9–2.1 cm RMS), using different software packages, models, corrections and analysis strategies. There is now a wide international participation within IDS that should lead to future improvements in DORIS analysis strategies and DORIS-derived geodetic products.     

DORIS processing at the European Space Operations Centre

This paper gives an overview of the DORIS related activities at the Navigation Support Office of the European Space Operations Centre. The DORIS activities were started in 2002 because of the launch of the Envisat satellite where ESOC is responsible for the validation of the Envisat Precise Orbits and a brief overview of the key Envisat activities at ESOC is given. Typical orbit comparison RMS values between the CNES POE (GDR-C) and the ESOC POD solution is 6.5, 18.8 and 23.1 mm in radial-, along- and cross-track direction. In the framework of the generation of the ITRF2008 ESOC participated in the reprocessing of all three space geodetic techniques; DORIS, SLR, and GPS. Here the main results of our DORIS reprocessing, in the framework of the International DORIS Service (IDS), are given. The WRMS of the weekly ESOC solution (esawd03) for the 2004–2009 period compared to the IDS-1 combined solution is of the order of 12 mm. Based on the long time series of homogeneously processed data a closer look is taken at the estimated solar radiation pressure parameters of the different satellites used in this DORIS analysis. The main aim being the stabilization of the Z-component of the geocentre estimates. We conclude that the ESOC participation to the IDS ITRF2008 contribution has been beneficial for both ESOC and the IDS. ESOC has profited significantly from the very open and direct communications and comparisons that took place within the IDS during the reprocessing campaign.     

基于混合编程技术的AOCC应用软件快速仿真平台

介绍基于混合编程技术的AOCC应用软件的快速仿真平台的整体框架设计以及具体实现．基于该方法构建的快速仿真平台，能够满足软件开发人员对基于8086汇编语言开发的AOCC应用软件开、闭环调试和测试的要求，对提高软件的开发效率和保证软件的质量有积极意义．     

Determination of station positions and velocities from laser ranging observations to Ajisai,Starlette and Stella satellites

The positions and velocities of the four Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) stations: Yarragadee (7090), Greenbelt (7105), Graz (7839) and Herstmonceux (7840) from 5-year (2001–2005) SLR data of low orbiting satellites (LEO): Ajisai, Starlette and Stella were determined. The orbits of these satellites were computed from the data provided by 20 SLR stations. All orbital computations were performed by means of NASA Goddard’s GEODYN-II program. The geocentric coordinates were transformed to the topocentric North–South, East–West and Vertical components in reference to ITRF2005. The influence of the number of normal points per orbital arc and the empirical acceleration coefficients on the quality of station coordinates was studied. To get standard deviation of the coordinates determination lower than 1 cm, the number of the normal points per site had to be greater than 50. The computed positions and velocities were compared to those derived from LAGEOS-1/LAGEOS-2 data. Three parameters were used for this comparison: station coordinates stability, differences from ITRF2005 positions and velocities. The stability of coordinates of LEO satellites is significantly worse (17.8 mm) than those of LAGEOS (7.6 mm), the better results are for Ajisai (15.4 mm) than for Starlette/Stella (20.4 mm). The difference in positions between the computed values and ITRF2005 were little bit worse for Starlette/Stella (6.6 mm) than for LAGEOS (4.6 mm), the results for Ajisai were five times worse (29.7 mm) probably due to center of mass correction of this satellite. The station velocities with some exceptions were on the same level (≈1 mm/year) for all satellites. The results presented in this work show that results from Starlette/Stella are better than those from Ajisai for station coordinates determination. We can applied the data from LEO satellites, especially Starlette and Stella for determination of the SLR station coordinates but with two times lower accuracy than when using LAGEOS data.     

球形粒子在流体中的跟随性

本文从Maxey和Riley的粒子运动基本方程出发,得到了球形固体粒子在相对流动雷诺数很小情形下的分析解。讨论了粒子跟随性对外力、初始条件和流场性质的依赖关系;对均匀湍流场,分析了不同密度比和扰动频率对跟随性的影响     

Vertical motions in Thailand after the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman Earthquake from GPS observations and its geophysical modelling

Following previous findings from ongoing GPS research in Thailand since 2004 we continue to exploit the GPS technique to monitor and model land motions induced by the Sumatra–Andaman Earthquake. Our latest results show that up to the end of 2010, Thailand has been co-seismically displaced and is subsequently undergoing a post-seismic horizontal deformation with total displacements (co-seismic plus post-seismic) ranging from 10.5 to 74.7 cm. We observed the largest horizontal displacements in the southern part of Thailand and moderate and small displacements in the central and northern parts. In addition to horizontal displacements throughout Thailand, continuous GPS measurements show that large parts of Thailand are subsiding at rates up to 1 cm/yr. It is the first time that such vertical post-seismic deformations at large distances (650–1500 km away from the Earthquake’s epicentre) have been recorded. We have investigated the physical processes leading to the observed subsidence. While after-slip on the subduction interface induces negligible or even slightly positive vertical motions, relaxation in the asthenosphere is associated with a sizable subsidence. Predictions from a 3D finite element model feature an asthenosphere with an effective viscosity of the order of 3 * 10¹⁸ Pas, fit the horizontal post-seismic data and the observed subsidence well. This model is then used to predict the subsidence over the whole seismic cycle. The subsidence should go on with a diminishing rate through the next two decades and its final magnitude should not exceed 10 cm in the Bangkok area.     

Refining DORIS atmospheric drag estimation in preparation of ITRF2008

In preparation of ITRF2008, all geodetic technique services (VLBI, SLR, GPS and DORIS) are generating new solutions based on combination of individual analysis centers solutions. These data reprocessing are based on a selection of models, parameterization and estimation strategy unique to each analysis center and to each technique. While a good agreement can be found for models between groups, thanks to the existence of the IERS conventions, a great diversity still exist for parameter estimation, allowing possible future improvements in this direction. The goal of this study is to focus on the atmospheric drag estimation used to generate the new DORIS/IGN ignwd08 time series prepared for ITRF2008. We develop here a method to inter-compare different processing strategies. In a first step, by analyzing single-satellite solutions for a few weeks of data but for a large number of possible analysis strategies, we demonstrate that estimating drag coefficient more frequently (typically every 1–2 h instead of previously every 4–8 h) for the lowest DORIS satellites (SPOTs and Envisat) provides better geodetic results for station coordinates and polar motion. This new processing strategy also solved earlier problem found when processing DORIS data during intense geomagnetic events, such as geomagnetic storms. Differences between drag estimation strategies can mostly be found during these few specific periods of extreme geomagnetic activity (few days per year). In such a case, when drag coefficient is only estimated every 6 h or less often for single-satellite solution, a significant degradation in station coordinate accuracy can be observed (120 mm vs. 20 mm) and significant biases arose in polar motion estimation (5 mas vs. 0.3 mas). In a second step, we reprocessed a full year of DORIS data (2003) in a standard multi-satellite mode. We were able to provide statistics on a more reliable data set and to strengthen these conclusions. Our proposed DORIS analysis is easy to implement in all software packages and is now already used by several analysis centers of the International DORIS Service (IDS) when submitting reprocessed solutions for ITRF2008.     

In Memoriam: Herbert L. Pick,Jr. (1930–2012)

ABSTRACT

Fictive motion in language (as in “the ridge went north”) is claimed to reflect the attention focus of the observer on the extension and spatial layout of an entity. This paper investigates fictive motion in alpine narratives, which describe the experience of moving in a very specifically structured space. We examine space properties that are highlighted through fictive motion in this specific context and describe how they go beyond spatial extension. We further report the communicative motivation behind the use of fictive motion, ranging from conveying the sense of place to encoding the full spatial footprint of a motion event.     

The effect of geocenter motion on Jason-2 orbits and the mean sea level

We compute a series of Jason-2 GPS and SLR/DORIS-based orbits using ITRF2005 and the std0905 standards ( Lemoine et al., 2010). Our GPS and SLR/DORIS orbit data sets span a period of 2 years from cycle 3 (July 2008) to cycle 74 (July 2010). We extract the Jason-2 orbit frame translational parameters per cycle by the means of a Helmert transformation between a set of reference orbits and a set of test orbits. We compare the annual terms of these time-series to the annual terms of two different geocenter motion models where biases and trends have been removed. Subsequently, we include the annual terms of the modeled geocenter motion as a degree-1 loading displacement correction to the GPS and SLR/DORIS tracking network of the POD process. Although the annual geocenter motion correction would reflect a stationary signal in time, under ideal conditions, the whole geocenter motion is a non-stationary process that includes secular trends. Our results suggest that our GSFC Jason-2 GPS-based orbits are closely tied to the center of mass (CM) of the Earth consistent with our current force modeling, whereas GSFC’s SLR/DORIS-based orbits are tied to the origin of ITRF2005, which is the center of figure (CF) for sub-secular scales. We quantify the GPS and SLR/DORIS orbit centering and how this impacts the orbit radial error over the globe, which is assimilated into mean sea level (MSL) error, from the omission of the annual term of the geocenter correction. We find that for the SLR/DORIS std0905 orbits, currently used by the oceanographic community, only the negligence of the annual term of the geocenter motion correction results in a – 4.67 ± 3.40 mm error in the Z-component of the orbit frame which creates 1.06 ± 2.66 mm of systematic error in the MSL estimates, mainly due to the uneven distribution of the oceans between the North and South hemisphere.