Recent modeling improvements in SOLVE analysis

D. MacMillan1and J. Gipson1

1NVI, Inc., NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA

Oral presentation

Over the past year, we have made several improvements in the analysis capabilities of CALC/SOLVE.  We implemented antenna thermal deformation as a contribution that can be applied in CALC/SOLVE analysis. The model input for each antenna consists of antenna dimensions, antenna material expansion coefficients, reference temperature, and observed temperature. Baseline solutions with the deformation model contribution yielded improvement in length repeatabilities up to 1 mm.  The VMF1 mapping function can now be applied in SOLVE analysis. Comparison tests with NMF showed  improved baseline length repeatabilities,  better EOP (Earth orientation parameter) agreement (wrms differences) with IGS, better solution fits, and a reference frame scale change of 0.07 ppb.  Observations made on baselines with a common station are correlated via the common noise contribution from this station. We can now account in SOLVE analysis for this site-dependent correlated noise, which is mainly of tropospheric origin. We find that by accounting for correlated noise, baseline length repeatabilities are improved by up to 2 mm and agreement with IGS EOP is improved.