Geoscience Australia has been selected to work collaboratively with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as the next International GNSS Service (IGS) Analysis Center Coordinator (ACC).
The two bodies will be supported by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences Potsdam and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Geoscience Australia (GA) has already fulfilled the role of one of the Coordinators for the past eight years, along with MIT. In a statement posted on LinkedIn, GA said that “we look forward to the next 8 [years] with NASA, supported by MIT and Helmholtz-Centre Potsdam – German Research Centre GFZ.”
The ACC plays a crucial role within the IGS, being responsible for:
- Monitoring the quality of products submitted by individual Analysis Centres (Acs).
- Combining products from individual ACs to produce robust operational products.
- Evaluating the combined products for performance and consistency.
- Disseminating official IGS combined products through an operational framework.
- Coordinating changes, developments, and improvements within the contributing ACs to use the latest models and standards.
- Evaluating the suitability of new ACs that wish to be recognized by the IGS.
The ACC is responsible for establishing the detailed specifications for IGS products, while working closely with ACs and the IGS Reference Frame Coordinator.
According to GA, the IGS plays a role that is “fundamental to the global scale positioning and navigation systems that are essential to life as we know it,” and involves weekly, daily and sub-daily updates on:
- GNSS satellite positions in space
- Earth orientation parameters
- Satellite and ground station clock values, and
- Ground station coordinates and velocities, which are used to define the frame of reference for positioning and navigation applications
The IGS ACC is also responsible for monitoring the quality of products, and coordinating changes, developments and improvements to ensure centres use the latest models and standards.
The IGS says that the new “NASA/GA+ ACC will undertake a phased approach to ensure a smooth and thorough transition towards a fully multi-GNSS IGS, enhancing the accuracy and reliability of future GNSS products, while working towards achieving the IGS strategic goal of ‘multi-GNSS Technical Excellence’.”
The IGS describes itself as “a voluntary federation of many worldwide agencies that pool resources and permanent GNSS station data to generate precise GNSS products”. It comprises 350 members agencies in 188 countries or regions, and a total of 512 stations.
