[IGSMAIL-5677]: GLONASS Launch 25-December-2007 successful!

[Tim Springer]

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IGS Electronic Mail      28 Dec 06:19:41 PST 2007      Message Number 5677
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Author: Tim Springer

Dear IGS Colleagues,

On 25-December-2007 three more GLONASS satellites were launched successfully. This second successful launch in 2007 will bring the GLONASS constellation up to 16 satellites. With
this the GLONASS system remains well on track to reach full orbit constellation and full availability in 2009.

Early in January 2008 the IGS Analysis Centre at ESOC will follow the good example of the CODE Analysis Centre and will start to produce true GNSS solutions. This means that we
will generate solutions based on combining the observations of the GPS and GLONASS satellites in one (large) estimation process to produce our final products for the IGS. We
presented initial results of this true GNSS analysis at the recent AGU Fall meeting in San Francisco. The results clearly showed that the main factor limiting the GLONASS orbit
accuracies is the IGS tracking network!!??

With this e-mail I therefore would like to urge the IGS network centres to put in additional effort to install more GPS-GLONASS combined tracking sites. Please have a look at the
GLONASS tracking sites map at the IGSCB to figure out where sites could be useful (there are many many gaps in the network):
http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/network/iglos.html

Please note that if you provide a GPS-GLONASS site at a good location there will be at least two IGS Analysis Centres analysing your data (CODE and ESOC). So there is a mutual
benefit!

Wishing you all a very prosperous 2008!

Many greetings,
Tim Springer

ps. For more information regarding the GLONASS launch I would like to refer you to the following web site:
http://russianforces.org/blog/2007/12/second_glonass_launch_of_2007.shtml

ps. For detailed information on the GLONASS status please refer to:
http://www.glonass-ianc.rsa.ru/pls/htmldb/f?p=202:20:14637162736231801312::NO