Determination of polar motion from satellite observations

Doppler observations of U.S. Navy Navigation Satellites have been used to determine the Earth's pole position for the period 1967 to July 1972. Recent results are competitive in accuracy with astronomic results and exhibit about 0".02 agreement with astronomic pole positions. The differences are no larger than those between independent calculations of pole positions based on astronomic data (BIHvs. ILS). For a two-day span of observations made by 18 Doppler stations the uncertainty in computed pole position corresponding to random errors in observation is 0".002. However, the results have systematic errors with various frequencies which are primarily due to uncertainties in the gravity coefficients. Since these errors are independent of those producing systematic errors in astronomic results, the two techniques are complementary. Recent results of computation of polar motion based on laser observations of artificial Earth satellites have also produced results having accuracies comparable to Doppler and astronomic results. The analysis of the laser observations is based on the effect of pole position on the apparent inclination of satellite orbits; on the other hand, since the Doppler observations are made on polar orbiting satellites, they are more sensitive to errors in the component of pole position which lies in the orbit plane. As a result of this difference, biases in Doppler and laser results may be different in size or character.