NOAA Leads GPS Satellite Location Effort

[Satellite Today – 1-4-08] The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will lead an international effort to pinpoint the location more than 40 GPS satellites in orbit, NOAA announced Jan. 3.
    For the next four years, NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey will serve as the analysis center coordinator for the International Global Navigation Satellite Systems Service, a voluntary federation of more than 200 organizations that provide continuous global satellite-tracking data. NOAA personnel will compile and analyze data from 10 analysis centers around the globe to ensure the accuracy of GPS information at the centimeter level, which is necessary for scientific work, rather than the current meter-level data.
    The information, which will not be available in real-time, will be used for such disparate jobs as measuring levee height and plate tectonic movement.