 |
| The NERC Space Geodesy Facility has sucessfully tracked satellites at
2kHz. The new Event Timer and high repetition rate
laser have been installed to work alongside the original 13Hz SLR
system. The plot below is an example Stella pass from the early
high rate results.
A series of pre-pulses are visible which have now been removed from the
out-going laser pulse. |
 |
The pictures below are realtime dispalys
of a daytime Ajisai pass at high rate. Once the satellite
is found , it is clearly visible. Real-time tracking software can
easily select out the satellite returns.
The improvement in single-shot ranging precision, primarily due
to the much shorter pulselength of the kHz laser, is evident in the
table below and is
particularly noticable for targets with small retroreflector arrays.
| Satellite |
RMS(mm) (10Hz) |
RMS(mm) (KHz) |
No.Pts |
| Calibration |
8 |
4 |
- |
| Lageos |
16 |
14 |
33k |
| Icesat |
10 |
6 |
12k |
| ERS2 |
10 |
6 |
70k |
| Envisat |
10 |
6 |
65k |
| Gfo-1 |
11 |
8 |
10k |
| Larets |
9 |
6 |
11k |
| Stella |
14 |
10 |
10k |
| Jason |
10 |
6 |
50k |
| Ajisai |
40 |
42 |
57k |
|
