Current Status of the Satellite Laser Ranging

Ranging performance of satellite laser altimeters

Topographic mapping of the earth, moon and planets can be accomplished with high resolution and accuracy using satellite laser altimeters. These systems employ nanosecond laser pulses and microradian beam divergences to achieve submeter vertical range resolution from orbital altitudes of several hundred kilometers. In this paper we develop detailed expressions for the range and pulse width meas...

Satellite Laser Ranging and General Relativity

Satellite Laser Ranging and General Relativity

GNSS Satellite Orbit Validation Using Satellite Laser Ranging

With a total of four new regional and global navigation satellite systems that have launched first satellites or even started an operational service, the GNSS landscape has experienced major changes in recent years. As part of the Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) of the International GNSS Service (IGS), a global network of multi-GNSS monitoring stations has been established and various analysis cen...

Improvement of Current Refraction Modeling in Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) by Ray Tracing through Meteorological Data

The accuracy of current modern space-based geodetic systems such as Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR), Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), the Global Positioning System (GPS), and satellite altimetry all suffer from limitations in the modeling of atmospheric refraction corrections. The current modeling of atmospheric refraction in the analysis of SLR data comprises the determination of the at...