LARES-2 in the ILRS official products: analysis and current status

The International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS) regularly contributes to the maintenance of the reference frame by providing daily and weekly combined time series of station coordinates and Earth Rotation Parameters (ILRSA from the ILRS primary ASI Combination Center) derived from individual Analysis Centers (ACs) solutions, using LAGEOS-1/-2 and Etalon-1/-2 satellite data.

The inclusion of additional satellites in the ILRS official products has been under discussion since years within the ILRS Analysis Standing Committee and the launch of LARES-2 in July 2022 has been considered a real opportunity to improve the product quality. LARES-2 is a LAGEOS-type satellite specifically designed for high-accuracy satellite laser ranging.

The inclusion of LARES-2 as the fifth satellites of the constellation contributing to the routine products foresees a preliminary analysis to model stations' long-term systematic errors related to LARES-2.

The approach to manage the systematic errors is the same used for the ITRF2020 contributions: ACs simultaneously estimate station coordinates and range biases to determine a combined ILRSA set of long-term mean range biases for LARES-2, to be applied in the data analysis.

The identified systematic errors are reported in the ILRS Data Handling File (DHF), which is closely linked to the target signature model.

Preliminary time series of products including LAGEOS/ETALON/LARES-2 are available and an enhanced quality in the estimated station coordinates is evident, particularly in the UP component.

This presentation will address the status of the LARES-2 inclusion to the ILRS official products, emphasizing the quality of estimated parameters.