Author: Sven Bauer

Dear ILRS colleagues,

we just had our first succesfull Grace Follow On Pass (24th of May 2018 @ 22:17 UTC) and even received returns from both satellites as they were passing over Potsdam station. As the GPS receivers are now switched on, the predicitions are already quite accurate, even so shortly after the launch. So the timebiases were very small and around

-0.3 ms for GFO1

and

+0.5 ms for GFO2.

Since the orbit quality is so good already, laser tracking shoud be feasible now. Good luck with that!

Best

Sven Bauer

--
Dr.-Ing. Sven Bauer
Section 1.2 Global Geomonitoring and Gravity Field,
Earth System Parameters and Orbit Dynamics,
POT3 Satellite Laser Ranging Station

Phone:          +49 331 288 1738
Fax:            +49 331 288 1169
E-mail:         sven.bauer@gfz-potsdam.de

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Helmholtz Centre Potsdam
GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
Foundation under public law of the federal state
of Brandenburg
Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam