Determination of orbits and SLR stations’ coordinates on the basis of laser observations of the satellites Starlette and Stella Original Research Article

Orbits of two low satellites Starlette and Stella have been determined on the basis of the observational data collected in 2001 from the best 14 Satellite Laser Ranging stations. The coordinates of seven SLR stations have been determined in the ITRF2000 coordinates frame and compared with the results calculated for the same stations on the basis of Lageos data. All the calculations have been made assuming two models of the Earth gravity field EGM96 and EIGEN-GRACE02S. It has been shown that the best results of satellite orbits determination are obtained with the latest model of the Earth gravity field proposed on the basis of the GRACE mission results. With respect to the results obtained assuming the EGM96 model, the improvement reaches 10–50% both in the values of orbital RMS, and the station coordinates. All the calculations have been performed with the use of GEODYN-II program. The RMS of the orbits of Starlette and Stella varies from 1.02 to 1.90 cm. Such RMS values permit determination of the laser stations to a high accuracy. The results presented in this work show that the data obtained for low satellites such as Starlette or Stella can be successfully applied for determination of the SLR station coordinates.