Earth rotation parameters estimation using satellite laser ranging measurements to multiple LEO satellites

Earth rotation parameters (ERP) are one of the key parameters in realization of the International Terrestrial Reference Frames (ITRF). Currently, the ERP products from International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS) are generated based on SLR observations to LAGEOS and Etalon satellites, which account for only about 9% of total SLR observations to Earth satellites. A large amount of SLR observations for the geodetic and oceanographic LEOs are neglected due to relatively degraded orbit caused by imperfect orbit models. However, thanks to the recent refinement of both dynamic and observation models, the quality of LEO orbits has been improved significantly, which makes it worthwhile to investigate the potential of these LEOs in the ERP estimation. In this study, we focus on the contribution of SLR observations from multiple LEO satellites to ERP estimation. The SLR observations of current seven LEO satellites (Swarm-A/B, GRACE-C/D, Sentinel-3A/B and Jason-3) as well as LAGEOS are used. Several strategies are designed to investigate the impact of the LEO orbit altitude, inclination and the number of LEO satellites. We also discuss the contribution of the application of ambiguity-fixed orbits and consider the simultaneous processing of SLR and GPS observations. The three-day solutions are selected and all the results are evaluated by the comparison with IERS Bulletin A.

The results show that for the single-LEO solutions, there is no evident relationship between the accuracy of ERP and the LEO orbit altitude and inclination. The best consistency with the IERS products is achieved by the Jason-3 solutions, with RMS values of 1.9mas, 1.8mas and 93us for X pole, Y pole and length of day (LOD) respectively. The multi-LEO solution results indicate that the accuracy of ERP can be improved gradually with the increase of LEO satellites. Compared with the single-LEO solution, the accuracy of X pole and Y pole of the 7-LEO solution is improved by 39.27% and 53.84% respectively. This result can be easily understood by the evident increase of SLR observations with the increase of LEO satellites. We also find the ERP estimation can benefit from the application of the ambiguity-fixed orbit.

In addition, apart from the solutions with LEO orbits fixed (two-step method), we also jointly process the onboard GPS observations and SLR measurements to obtain LEO orbits and ERP simultaneously (one-step method). The result indicates that the ERP of the one-step solution present a better accuracy than that of the two-step solution. Moreover, the LEO orbits can also benefit from the integrated processing.