ILRS MWG Meeting (Nice 2003)
Summary of Missions Working
Group
Nice, France
April 7th, 2003
Because of a conflict in the ILRS meeting schedule on Monday 4/7/03, it was agreed that the Refraction Study Group and the Missions Working Group (MWG) would combine meetings to benefit all interested parties. Therefore, much of the MWG agenda was not discussed at the meeting and only a few "urgent" topics were discussed.
David Carter, coordinator of the MWG, presided over the meeting. Bart Clarke, from Honeywell Technology Solutions Incorporated NASA SLR, presented the "Intelligent Scheduler Update" for the ILRS Missions Working Group. Bart originally gave his "Intelligent Scheduler, Prioritize on the Fly" paper at the 13th International Laser Ranging Workshop in Washington, D.C. in October 2002. This paper was in response to the ILRS discussions about changing the current static satellite priority procedure. The "Intelligent Scheduler" is currently in development at HTSI to better utilize the Network resources by dynamically prioritizing satellites. This software is based on the current scheduling software at the Matera Laser Ranging Observatory (MLRO). The software features dynamic prioritizing of satellites by satellite position, amount of recently tracked data, and/or unique station criteria. It also features several optimization capabilities, such as the AOS/PCA/LOS optimization, the fine interleaving optimization, the Geodetic (sky coverage) optimization, and the Ascending/Descending optimization. The software is currently in development for use by the Global ILRS community. A copy of the Clarke presentation is included on the MWG web page.
Dr. Mike Pearlman then presented the ILRS Central Bureau proposal for a more simplified scheme for the start of Dynamic Priorities. This will give the stations a priority update that would be used to help make local scheduling decisions. The update would be based on recent tracking density and could be distributed through the AIUB prediction update server. A copy of the Pearlman presentation is included on the MWG web page.
Due to the scheduling conflict, the remaining MWG agenda was not covered. Because the information is important to the ILRS community, the presentation materials are included into the minutes of the ILRS meeting on the MWG web page for reference.
