A Development of the Russian Geodetic Reference Network

Abstract

Two geodetic systems are now used on the Russian territory: Regional Geodetic Coordinate System (GSC-11) and geocentric coordinate system (PZ-90.11) for the GLONASS system and for different orbital calculations. The GSC network consists of 35 (50 in future) permanent fundamental sites, equipped with dual GPS/GLONASS receivers within 700–800 km distance from each other, and of about 300 first class geodetic points. Several sites of this network are already co-located with SLR, VLBI and DORIS stations, established on Russian territory with some additional co-locations to improve the accuracy and stability of the reference network in the near future. This network will fix the national coordinate system all over the country with mean square errors at the level of 1–5 cm for absolute coordinates and for relative positioning within errors of several mm. It is assumed to integrate this network with the ITRF and to realize the unified East European – North Asian Reference Frame. The improved global geocentric system PZ-90.11, which is now used for the GLONASS system, is fixed at the 2010 epoch. This system was obtained by the processing of a large amount of GPS, GLONASS, SLR and DORIS data, obtained at the Russian and international sites. The orientation of the coordinate axes, linear scale and origin of the system coincide with the ITRF system at the 0.5 cm-level. Transformation parameters between PZ-90.11, ITRF2008 and GSC-11 are considered.