Determination of SLR station coordinates based on LEO, LARES, LAGEOS, and Galileo satellites

Abstract

The number of satellites equipped with retroreflectors dedicated to Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) increases simultaneously with the development and invention of the spherical geodetic satellites, low Earth orbiters (LEOs), Galileo and other components of the Global Navigational Satellite System (GNSS). SLR and GNSS techniques onboard LEO and GNSS satellites create the possibility of widening the use of SLR observations for deriving SLR station coordinates, which up to now have been typically based on spherical geodetic satellites. We determine SLR station coordinates based on integrated SLR observations to LEOs, spherical geodetic, and GNSS satellites orbiting the Earth at different altitudes, from 330 to 26,210 km. The combination of eight LEOs, LAGEOS-1/2, LARES, and 13 Galileo satellites increased the number of 7-day SLR solutions from 10–20% to even 50%. We discuss the issues of handling of range biases in multi-satellite combinations and the proper solution constraining and weighting. Weighted combination is characterized by a reduction of formal error medians of estimated station coordinates up to 50%, and the reduction of station coordinate residuals. The combination of all satellites with optimum weighting increases the consistency of station coordinates in terms of interquartile ranges by 10% of horizontal components for non-core stations w.r.t LAGEOS-only solutions.