GFZ VER11 SLCCI precise orbits of altimetry satellites ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 in the ITRF2008

Cite as:

Rudenko, Sergei; Schöne, Tilo; Neumayer, Karl-Hans; Esselborn, Saskia; Raimondo, Jean-Claude; Dettmering, Denise (2016): GFZ VER11 SLCCI precise orbits of altimetry satellites ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 in the ITRF2008. V. VER11. GFZ Data Services. https://doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.1.2.2018.001

Status

I N R E V I E W : Rudenko, Sergei; Schöne, Tilo; Neumayer, Karl-Hans; Esselborn, Saskia; Raimondo, Jean-Claude; Dettmering, Denise (2016): GFZ VER11 SLCCI precise orbits of altimetry satellites ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 in the ITRF2008. V. VER11. GFZ Data Services. https://doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.1.2.2018.001

Abstract

The data set provides GFZ VER11 orbits of altimetry satellites

ERS-1 (August 1, 1991 - July 5, 1996),
ERS-2 (May 13, 1995 - February 27, 2006),
Envisat (April 12, 2002 - April 8, 2012),
Jason-1 (January 13, 2002 - July 5, 2013) and
Jason-2 (July 5, 2008 - April 5, 2015)
TOPEX/Poseidon (September 23, 1992 - October 8, 2005),

derived at the time spans given at Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences within the Sea Level phase 2 project of the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative using "Earth Parameter and Orbit System - Orbit Computation (EPOS-OC)" software and the Altimeter Database and processing System (ADS, http://adsc.gfz-potsdam.de/ads/) developed at GFZ. The orbits were computed in the same (ITRF2008) terrestrial reference frame for all satellites using common, most precise models and standards available and described below.

The ERS-1 orbit is computed using satellite laser ranging (SLR) and altimeter crossover data, while the ERS-2 orbit is derived using additionally Precise Range And Range-rate Equipment (PRARE) measurements. The Envisat, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 orbits are based on Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) and SLR observations.

The orbit files are available in the Extended Standard Product 3 Orbit Format (SP3-c, https://files.igs.org/pub/data/format/sp3c.txt) Files are gzip-compressed. File names are given as sate_YYYYMMDD_SP3C.gz, where "sate" is the abbreviation (ENVI, ERS1, ERS2, JAS1, JAS2, TOPX) of the satellite name, YYYY stands for 4-digit year, MM stands for month and DD stands for day of the beginning of the file.

More details on these orbits are provided in Rudenko et al. (2017)

Authors

Rudenko, Sergei;GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Deutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut der Technischen Universität München (DGFI-TUM)
Schöne, Tilo;GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany
Neumayer, Karl-Hans;GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany
Esselborn, Saskia;GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany
Raimondo, Jean-Claude;SpaceTech GmbH
Dettmering, Denise;Deutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut der Technischen Universität München (DGFI-TUM)

Contact

Rudenko, Sergiy; Deutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut der Technischen Universität München (DGFI-TUM); ➦
Schöne, Tilo; GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany;

Contributors

Rudenko, Sergiy

Keywords

Jason-1, Jason-2, ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat, ESA CCI Sea Level, Altimetry satellite, Low Earth Orbit satellites, sea level, TOPEX/POSEIDON, ITRF2008, equipment > artificial satellite > observation satellite