# Status of WPLTN stations, network and operations

## Australian Stations

Performances of Yarragadee(Mob5) and Mt.Stromlo both in productivity and
quality are those of the best in the whole global network, producing
more than 80% of the southern hemisphere data and 70% of all WPLTN
stations.

Mob5 is now under control of Australian government and run by British
Aerospace Australia contracted by AUSLIG, operating 12 hours 7 days/week
by 5 personnel (2 engineers + station manager)

## Mt.Stromlo is also operating full time of day/week with R&D engineering work for future upgrade by Electro Optic Systems. Engineering work done in this year includes internal calibration design, Coude mirror coatings, CCD camera installation, barometer calibration. Continuous improvement of automation of tracking, processing and report generation by software development as well as optimizing manual procedures. A comprehensive survey connecting telescope origin to various geodetic and time technique reference point.

## Chinese Network

Changchun meets ILRS annual productivity goals both LEO and High
satellite. Observation brake during 23 May-Sep.2 was due to encoder disk
damage and replacement. Productivity recovers to the same level as it
used to be and quality is continuing at a good level.

Shanghai station installed C-SPAD detector and operational since March
1999, and new MET instrument since September 1999. The QL analysis for
Lageos is ready to publish once per two weeks. Next steps for the system
upgrading will be a short distance calibration target and a new narrow
band filter installed within this year.

Beijing station has installed new HP GPS receiver, C-SPAD , and started
to use prediction orbit from RGO. At present time bias settled down 50us
and normal point RMS less than 15mm. Problem areas remain at unstable
mount servo system and laser performance.

Kunming station start observation since end of 1998. Approximately 200
Lageos passes acquired till May with single shot precision of 30mm and
bias stability of 35mm.

Wuhan status will be followed up.

## 

## Japanese Network

KSP started observation since September 1998 in good quality, but only
10-20 Lageos passes per month at the best case on each station, with
much disappointing. This is partly due to the weather, but partly to
instability of the system and general lack of operational expertise to
run four stations smoothly. Currently one shift and 5 days/week is in
operation. Instability area included in the laser due to diode life time
ending in last 6 months, in quick silver coating degradation on Coude
mirrors, in delay of ADL (aircraft detection laser) acceptance and
numerous other shortage.

CRL tries to increase productivity at least double in the next 6 months
by increasing shift and settling system instability down especially aims
demonstration for simultaneous tracking to the same satellite for short
arc solution.

Simosato has suffered from an old mount servo system since April of this
year, and also laser instability started seriously in summer. Meanwhile,
system has taken damage considerably from lightning at the end of August
and waiting for repair till end of September.

HTLRS in this year is in operation 8 September to 24 December as the
third occupation at one of the most southern-west island, Ishigaki. Next
year it will go at the most northern peninsula in Japan.

## Russian Network

Currently all efforts are aimed on adjustment of the new SLR station
near Moscow. In comparison with the last year, there are no considerable
changes in the hardware and software of the existing stations, as well
as in organization of their work. The all stations are still operating
only at night and the single measurement error is about 3 cm. Maidanak
has met annual ILRS productivity goals for high satellites.

RISDE has planned the Maidanak station upgrade to enhance the
measurement accuracy (to 1 cm or better) and to provide its operation in
day and night. The accuracy enhancement is based on putting into
operation the new laser with a pulsewidth of 30 ps. Other
instrumentation being ready including the SR 620 counter, the TC 420
discriminator, and the H5023 photomultiplier a high-accuracy
meteorological instrument. But, because of financial problems, they
could not solve all the laser installation in this year.

Because of the extensive forest fires, the Komsomolsk station had only
short operation periods in this summer. The situation will be better
later in this year.

## SALRO

SALRO has been in long brake and is not in good status because of the
following problems:

1- Laser system

2- Receiver

3- GPS

4- Y2K

AUSLIG, as WPLTN support, has donated numerous ex-Orroral items to SALRO
in the effort being undertaken by EOS team to restore the system to
productive operation.

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## 

## Mission support and QC activities

Russian MCC continues to generate TIRV prediction weekly basis for
WESTPAC satellite and data incoming report. MCC as analysis center of
ILRS, has been reporting range bias analysis for each station by Lageos
1 and 2, on weekly basis.

CRL continues to generate bias analysis report for each station using
AJISAI and Lageos on the WEB.

## Campaign

WPLTN will undertake another regional Geodetic campaign in November 1999
(PCGIP99) requested by the Permanent Committee for GIS in Asia and the
Pacific. The campaign will be co-facilitating SLR with all permanent
GPS, and DORIS sites in the Asia Pacific region as well as two 24 hour
APSG VLBI observations. The intention is to integrate the SLR solutions
with those of other techniques. The geodetic satellites Lageos-1 and -2
and Etalon-1 and -2, be targeted as priority during the campaign.