Orbital analysis of ERS-2 with the GEOSAT software

Authors: K. Aksnes*, P.-H. Andersen**, and H. Skonnord*
*Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo,Norway
**Forsvarets forskningsinstitutt, Kjeller, Norwy

The purpose of this analysis has been to investigate the accuracy with which
the orbit of ERS-2 can be computed with the GEOSAT software based on PRARE
and SLR tracking data and the EGM96 geopotential. The data covers the period
May - June 1996 split up into 5-day arcs with up to 10 PRARE stations and
16 SLR stations per arc. The paper describes the analysis strategy and models
employed. Despite certain problems with PRARE biases, the PRARE data and the
SLR data appear to yield orbits of comparable accuracies. Some of the orbits
have been used at FFI to generate interferograms over Svalbard.

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry