ITRF2013
In early 2014, the ITRS Center of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) will begin assembling
the next realization of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame, ITRF2013. VLBI Analysis Centers are
encouraged to submit their station and velocity analysis for this effort. This web page provides guidelines
for Analysis Centers to use in their ITRF2013 submissions, as well as files to support the analysis.
ITRF2013 Participation Call, Instructions, and Checklist
Files for Use in ITRF2013 Analysis
Axis offsets should not be estimated in the ITRF2013 solutions. Instead, the following a priori file
should be used. The solution used to generate this file fixed the axis offset to the ground survey
measurement for all sites for which a measurement was available.
Other files for use in ITRF2013 include:
Sources
The handling of sources requires particular care, as there are several
categories of sources.
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ICRF2 Defining Sources
The ICRF2 defining sources are well-observed sources whose apparent position
is stable. Analysts should fix the positions of these sources
to their positions as given in ICRF2 at the following link.
ICRF2 Defining Source Positions
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Special Handling sources
The Special Handling sources are generally strong sources
with unstable positions. Using a fixed position for these sources
for all sessions will corrupt the estimates of other parameters
such as EOP and station positions. Because of this,
the position of these sources should be estimated on a session-by-session
basis.
Special Handling Source List
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Other Sources
There are many other sources that have been observed in geodetic sessions.
Analysts are free to either use the ICRF2 positions for these sources or
else solve for their positions on a session-by-session basis.
Please indicate how you treat these sources in the description of your
solution.
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