Estimation of the Love and Shida numbers: h2, l2 using SLR data for the low satellites Original Research Article

In this paper we present results for the global elastic parameters: Love number h2 and Shida number l2 derived from the analysis of Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) data. SLR data for the two low satellites STELLA (H = 800 km) and STARLETTE (H = 810 km) observed during 2.5 years from January 3, 2005 until July 1, 2007 with 18 globally distributed ground stations were analyzed. The analysis was done separately for the two satellites. We do a sequential analysis and study the stability and convergence of the estimates as a function of length of the data set used. The final adjusted values for h2 equal to 0.6163 ± 0.0037 and 0.6048 ± 0.0025, and those for l2 equal to 0.0176 ± 0.0017 and 0.1151 ± 0.0010 for STELLA and STARLETTE tracking data are compared to estimates we previously published based on data for two high satellites LAGEOS1 (H = 5860 km) and LAGEOS2 (H = 5620 km) (). A major discrepancy between the two solutions was found for the Shida number l2.