hide
Free keywords:
-
Abstract:
Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) data can be processed to estimate geodetic parameters, i.e., the Earth Rotation Parameters (ERPs), station coordinates or low-degree spherical harmonic coefficients of the Earth's gravity field. The satellite orbits are determined in 7-day arcs together with geodetic and instrument parameters. However, the quality of these orbits strongly depends on the accuracy of the background models, e.g., the a priori Earth's gravity field. In this study, SLR analyses are validated, where different a priori gravity field models are used. These include static and time-variable products provided by the Center for Space Research (CSR), the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS) and the Combination Service for Time-variable Gravity Fields (COST-G). The impact of the background models on the SLR data processing is analyzed by comparing the estimated parameters with internal and external quality metrics.