Technical description of session EOP solution gsfint24 2009.11.10 1. Purpose of solution: Determination of UT1 from short, ~1.0 hour, NEOS Intensive VLBI sessions. 2. Analysis center: GSF (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center). 3. Short narrative description of solution: Solution gsfint24 is for the estimation of UT1 from the 1-hour NEOS and K4 Intensive sessions. Most sessions consist of ~12-30 observations on one baseline. The solution includes all usable Intensive sessions from 1991.10.01 through 2009.NOV02. The primary single-baseline sessions have been: WESTFORD/WETTZELL, NRAO85-3/WETTZELL, NRAO20/WETTZELL, KOKEE/WETTZELL, and TSUKUB32/WETTZELL. Beginning in 2007, some sessions periodically contain 3 stations, primarily NYALES20/TSUKUB32/WETTZELL and KOKEE/SVETLOE/WETTZELL. Each session was processed independently. There are a total of 4600 sessions. Also, thereare 161 3-station sessions for which the int24.eopm file contains UT1 solved from each separate baseline. 3a. Differences with respect to previous (gsint23) solution: Contributions UT1Ortho, XpYpOrth, and XpYpNutn were applied instead of high frequency EOP model hf1102a. The Vienna mapping function (VMF) troposphere model was applied instead of the Niell mapping function (NMF) model. The IVS antenna thermal deformation model was applied. 4. Estimated parameters: -- UT1 angle. -- Atmosphere path delay offset at each station. -- Coefficients of the second order polynomials of clock function. 5. Celestial reference frame: a. A priori source positions: /500/solutions/20089/2009a_aposteriori.src. This catalog was created in the gsf2009a solution. b. Source positions adjusted in solution: No 6 - Terrestrial reference frame: a. A priori station positions: /500/solutions/2009a/2009a_aposteriori.sit. This catalog was created in the gsf2009a solution. b. A priori station velocities: /500/solutions/2009a/2009a_aposteriori.vel. This catalog was created in the gsf2009a solution. c. Reference epoch: 2000.0. d. Station positions/velocities adjusted in solution: No. j. Relativity scale: The terrestrial reference frame is defined using the following metric tensor: G_oo = -(1 - (2W/c^2 + W^2/c^4) + 2L_g ) G_oa = -4W^a/c^3 G_ab = \delta_ab (1 + 2W/c^2 - 2L_g) ) Specifically the old formula 29 in IERS Conventions 1992, page 127-136 was used, although it is known to have a deficiency. THIS METRIC TENSOR DOES NOT CONFORM TO IAU 2000 RESOLUTIONS! k. Permanent tide correction: Yes. "Yes" means that both the permanent and the periodic tides have been modeled, so that the output station position is for after the removal of both the permanent and the periodic tidal effect. The model used includes tide displacements for zero frequency with Love numbers h2(freq=0) = 0.6078, l2(freq=0) = 0.0847 7. Earth orientation: a. A priori precession model: IAU200A Precession-Nutation, IERS 2003 [4] implementation. b. A priori nutation model: IAU2000A Precession-Nutation, IERS 2003 [4] implementation. c. A priori short-period tidal variations in X, Y, UT1 were computed in Calc 10.0, IERS 2003 implementation. d. EOP estimation: UT1 (without any constraints). e. A priori UT1 and polar motion: usno_finals.data http://gemini.gsfc.nasa.gov/solve_save/usno_finals.erp obtained by adding small linear shift and drift to the left columns of original finals.data file generated by USNO, ftp://maia.usno.navy.mil/ser7/finals.data in such a manner that there is no shift or secular drift with respect to the gsf2009a.eops series over the period 1997.0 - present. 8. A priori geophysical models: a. Troposphere: VMF total mapping function; Saastamoinen zenith delay calculated using logged pressure, temperature; a priori mean gradients from VLBI data or DAO weather model. b. Solid Earth tide: IERS Conventions 2003 [4], chapter 7, p. 9, steps 1 and 2, including tides of the 2-nd and 3-rd order. c. Ocean loading: 3D ocean loading displacements computed by SPOTL software. The model of displacements caused by ocean loading contains 18 constituents. The following ocean tide models were used: Harmonic Frequency rad/sec Model k2-a 1.324501D+00 1.458530140651D-04 GOT00 admittance k2 3.506941D+00 1.458423171028D-04 GOT00 s2 6.283185D+00 1.454441043329D-04 GOT00 s2-a 4.312500D-02 1.452450074576D-04 GOT00 admittance m2 2.169437D+00 1.405189027044D-04 GOT00 m2-a 1.210284D+00 1.405082057420D-04 GOT00 admittance n2 6.097067D+00 1.378796996516D-04 GOT00 k1-a 1.141827D+00 7.293185551375D-05 GOT00 admittance k1 3.324267D+00 7.292115855138D-05 GOT00 k1-b 2.365113D+00 7.291046158901D-05 GOT00 admittance p1 2.958919D+00 7.252294578148D-05 GOT00 p1-a 3.002044D+00 7.232384890619D-05 GOT00 admittance o1 5.128356D+00 6.759774415297D-05 GOT00 o1-a 1.027610D+00 6.758704719061D-05 GOT00 admittance q1 2.772800D+00 6.495854110023D-05 GOT00 q1-a 4.955240D+00 6.494784413786D-05 GOT00 admittance mtm-a 4.652212D+00 7.973314413516D-06 NAO99.l admittance mtm 5.514660D-01 7.962617451151D-06 NAO99.l mf-a 2.296657D+00 5.334111360775D-06 NAO99.l admittance mf 4.479096D+00 5.323414398410D-06 NAO99.l msf 9.721550D-01 4.925201628510D-06 NAO99.l mm 5.497148D+00 2.639203052741D-06 NAO99.l msm 4.899785D+00 2.285998575769D-06 NAO99.l ssa 3.653480D-01 3.982127698995D-07 NAO99.l paw 5.012885D+00 1.991063797295D-07 equilibrium sa 3.098467D+00 1.990968752920D-07 NAO99.l pcw 2.003605D+00 1.671771314171D-07 equilibrium 18.6 4.100746D+00 1.069696236521D-08 equilibrium d. Pole tide: Mean pole coordinates used for computation of pole tide deformation were set to the IERS 2003 Conventions [4] recommended values (Chapter 7, p. 15). e. Mean site gradients were computed from the GSFC Data Assimilation Office (DAO) model for met data from 1990-95. The atmospheric gradient delay is modeled as: tau = m_grad(el) * [GN*cos(az)+GE*sin(az)], where el and az are the elevation and azimuth of the observation and the gradient mapping function is m_grad. The gradient vector has East and North components GE and GN. Refer to [1], [2]. f. Antenna thermal deformation: Antenna heights were adjusted, based on the average daily temperatures, using the IVS antennae thermal deformation model of Nothnagel 2008 [5]. 9. Data type: Group delays. 10. Data editing: Manual, elevation cutoff 5 degrees. 11. Data weighting. Weights are defined as follows: 1/sqrt ( f**2 + a**2 ) where "f" is formal uncertainty of the ionosphere free linear combination of group delays at X- and S-band obtained by fringe fitting on the base of achieved signal to noise ratio. Session-dependent parameter "a" was computed for each session by an iterative procedure such that the ratio of the sum of squares of weighted residuals to the estimate of their mathematical expectation is about unity. 12. Standard errors reported: All errors derived from least-squares estimation propagated from the data weights and the constraints applied to the troposphere, clock and EOP parameters. 13 Software: CALC 10.0, SOLVE revision date 2008.12.05. References: 1. MacMillan, D.S. and C. Ma, "Atmospheric gradients from very long baseline interferometry observations", Geophys. Res. Lett., 22, 1041-1044, 1995. 2. MacMillan, D.S. and C. Ma, "Atmospheric gradients and the VLBI terrestrial and celestial reference frames", Geophys. Res. Lett., 24, 453-456, 1997. 3. Petrov, L. and J.P. Boy, "Study of the atmospheric pressure loading signal in VLBI observations", J. Geophys. Res., 10.1029/2003JB002500, vol. 109, No. B03405, 2004. 4. McCarthy, D.D., Petit, G., IERS Technical Note 32, IERS Conventions (2003), 2003. 5. Nothnagel, A., "Short Note: Conventions on Thermal Expansion Modelling of Radio Telescopes for Geodetic and Astrometric VLBI," Journal of Geodesy, DOI: 10.1007/s00190-008-0284-z, 2008.