MEASURING RAPID VARIATIONS IN EARTH ORIENTATION, GEOCENTER AND CRUST WITH SATELLITE LASER RANGING

This analysis was performed with the GEOSAT software developed at NDRE for high-precision analysis of satellite tracking and VLBI data for g eodetic and geodynamic applications. To determine the amplitudes of th e tidally coherent daily and sub-daily variations in the Earth's orien tation, geocenter, and crust, we have analyzed twelve months of SLR tr acking data from the LAGEOS I & II and ETALON I and II satellites, obt ained between October 1992 and September 1993. Station coordinates and mean geocenter are determined with an accuracy of 1 to 2 cm. Amplitud es of diurnal and semidiurnal variations in UT1, polar motion, and geo center ace determined with a precision of similar to 2 mu ts, similar to 20 mu as, and 1-3 mm in each component. It is demonstrated that it is possible to determine a one-year continuous high-precision series i n UT1 using multi-satellite laser ranging.