GGSP: Realisation and maintenance of the Galileo Terrestrial Reference Frame

Abstract

The realisation and maintenance of a Galileo Terrestrial Reference Frame (GTRF) is the main function of the Galileo Geodetic Service Provider (GGSP). The GTRF shall be compatible with the latest International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) within a precision level of 3 cm (2 sigma). The connection to the ITRF is realized and validated by stations of the International GNSS Service (IGS) and by geodetic local ties to stations equipped with other geodetic techniques. It is demonstrated that this GTRF can be maintained by including the Galileo Signal-in-Space data, once Galileo reaches its operational stage. The GGSP will also provide additional products, such as Earth Rotation Parameters, satellites orbits, clock corrections for satellites and stations, which will be offered to the Galileo user community to have most precise access to the GTRF and will be used to monitor the accuracy of the corresponding Galileo Mission Segment. The GGSP was built up in time, and for a final demonstration the full system was operated for an interval of 6 months. During that time also microwave data from the two active GIOVE satellites were used. The GGSP Consortium followed the most up to date IGS standards of weekly processing during seven monthly campaigns (November 2006 to June 2008) and a continuous processing from September 2008 to February 2009 delivering several versions of the GTRF. The latest GTRF solution (GTRF09v01) has an RMS position difference with respect to the ITRF2005 computed over the 71 common stations of 1.1 and 2.9 mm in the horizontal and vertical components, respectively. The RMS velocity differences are 0.3 and 0.6 mm/y, respectively. The GGSP GPS satellite orbits and clock corrections agree with the IGS Final products at a level of 5–11 mm and 0.02–0.03 ns, respectively. The quality of the GIOVE orbits is at a level of 20–30 cm. The Hydrogen-Maser on board of GIOVE-B is nearly one order of magnitude better than the GPS satellite clocks.