UNAVCO Support to the GPS Global Network (GGN) and the International GPS Service (IGS)

Ruud, O.(1), Stowers, D.(2), Fisher, S.(1), Meertens, C.(1), Andreatta, V.(1)

(1) UNAVCO, Inc., Boulder Facility, 6350 Nautilus Drive, Boulder, CO 80301
(2) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109

Abstract

The UNAVCO, Inc. Boulder Facility provides GPS project support to investigators funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), including the NASA Solid Earth and Natural Hazards (SENH) Research and Applications Program. As part of this agreement, support is provided to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in their management of the NASA GPS Global Network (GGN), and to the International GPS Service (IGS) Central Bureau (CB), also located at JPL.

UNAVCO provides daily monitoring support for 67 NASA permanent GPS stations, 30 of which are part of the IGS Low Earth Orbit (LEO) pilot project, three are part of the Deep Space Network (DSN), four are stations supporting Ionospheric Scintillation projects, and 26 sites are real-time 1 Hz (high rate) global stations. NASA provides support for the GPS infrastructure through a network of permanent GPS stations called the GPS Global Network (GGN) which represents approximately 20% of the 362 stations (as of January 16th, 2004) that make up the IGS permanent station global network. On a global scale, these stations contribute to IGS data and precise products, help realize an International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF), determine station velocities for global tectonic models, and provide atmospheric, ionospheric, and essential ground network data for applications such as space weather forecasting and LEO occultation missions.

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