Dear Colleagues;

The AOGS 2015 meeting will be held in Singapore in August 2 – 7, 2015. See:http://www.asiaoceania.org/aogs2015/public.asp?page=home.htm 

We call your attention to the Solid Earth Sciences Session SE 18 entitled: “Expansion of Geodetic Technology in Space and on the Earth”. The session abstract is given below. This is an opportunity to take a broader view at the combination of Earth and space techniques as we look toward greater development of multi-technique data products to address topics of Earth science and societal benefit.

We encourage you to participate in the session and give serious consideration to submitting an abstract.  Please note that the deadline for submitting abstracts is February 18, 2015.

We hope that you will join us in Singapore.

Mike, Harald, Cheinway, and Toshi

Session SE 18: Title: Expansion of Geodetic Technology in Space and the Earth

Conveners: Michael Pearlman (USA), Harald Schuh (Germany), Cheinway Hwang (Taiwan), and Toshimichi Otsubo (Japan)

The Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) was established by the IAG to integrate the three fundamental areas of geodesy (Earth’s shape, gravity field, and rotation) 

to encourage products & services with the geodetic accuracy and robustness necessary to address important geophysical questions and societal needs. GGOS is constituted mainly from the IAG Services (ILRS, IVS, IGS, IDS, IGFS, etc.) and relies on the evolution of ground station technologies and the refreshing and updating of the space missions.  The main focus at the moment is the International Terrestrial Reference Frame, but other products such as precision orbit determination, gravity field, (needs more), are essential to Earth sensing metric products.

Several recent, operational, or planned satellite missions provide enhanced instrument capability for metric Earth sensing. The LARES mission has been added to the geodynamic constellation to enhance the reference frame. SLR tracking of the GNSS satellites has increased to begin using the GNSS constellation for distribution of the reference frame. Many current and planned LEO satellites such as the Jason series, HY-2 Series, SARAL, and ICESat -2, are focused on altimeters and SAR measurements to study the oceans and ice budget. Others such as GRACE-FO, and potentially GRACE-2 and XGRACE will provide a significant improvement in the gravity field through strengthening coverage and monitoring temporal variations. This will help to better understand the mass distribution and redistribution and to contribute to the development of a unified Earth Height system. Several new participants and mission partnerships in the Asia Oceania regions have helped to broaden the field with missions such as the HY series, SARAL, KOMPSAT, and STSat -2C.

This session will provide an opportunity for the ground-based measurement techniques to discuss the transition from legacy to the new technologies, for current and planned satellite missions and observation programs to give an update on their status and plans, and for presentation of recent results with improving capability.