[IGSMAIL-8394] ESA's multi-GNSS ANTEX solution available

[Francesco Gini]

Dear IGS Colleagues,

In reaction to the idea of doing a “BDS/QZSS campaign” we would like to inform you of the status at ESA and offer our contribution.
In our multi-GNSS solutions, which are available from our web side (see http://navigation-office.esa.int/GNSS_based_products.html) we clearly saw an issue with the BeiDou and QZSS solutions once we switched to the ITRF2020 and the corresponding igs20.atx. This was expected as the BeiDou and QZSS PCO values were not adjusted to the significant scale change going from ITRF2014 to ITRF2020. So we have taken the additional work to do a reprocessing to estimate the BeiDou and QZSS PCO values. The results of this effort are available from our web-site in the ANTEX format (http://navigation-office.esa.int/products/metadata/).

A very important feature of the esa23.atx is that it is based on the Galileo PCO/PCV values as they were measured and not on the ITRF2020 scale. This is fully in line with the ESA/ESOC current IGS approach, where we are also using the measured Galileo PCO/PCV values and not the igs20.atx values. So in doing the effort of estimating the BeiDou PCOs we have also taken the effort of adjusting the GPS and GLONASS values to get their valus to be consistent with the Galileo PCOs rather then with the igs20.atx. So the esa23.atx is a fully consistent set of PCOs, which are aligned to the measured Galileo PCOs rather then to the ITRF2020 scale.

A very interesting results we got was that the estimates we derived for the GPS Block III PCO values agreed very well (1 to 2 cm) with the measured GPS Block III PCO values. And we have therefore taken the GPS Block III measured values and not our estimated ones! For us this is a strong validation for our decision to prefer the Galileo PCOs over the ITRF2020 scale as reference for our GNSS solutions. In conclusion we can now say that the scale of our solutions is based on the measured Galileo and GPS Block III PCO values!

Since this Galileo-based alignment may not be what the IGS wants, however we are fully convinced this is a completely valid approach. In this context, ESA/ESOC is also prepared to offer the SINEX solutions from this effort so that the IGS (i.e. Paul and Arturo) can use them to generate an official IGS antex that is aligned to the ITRF2020 scale. Our reprocessing covers the period from 2014 until 2023 and includes GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, and QZSS.

We hope that this will help the IGS to speed up the “multi” aspect of the multi-GNSS service.

We intend to publish these results very soon.

Please do not hesitate to contact us  in case you have any questions related to the subject topic.

Many greetings,
Erik Schoenmann, Francesco Gini, Tim Springer, Florian Dilssner and Werner Enderle
For the ESA/ESOC IGS AC Team
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