Estimation of the elastic Earth parameters (h2, l2) using SLR data Original Research Article

We present results for the global elastic parameters h2 and l2 derived from the analysis of Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) data. SLR data for the two satellites LAGEOS 1 and LAGEOS 2 observed during 2.5 years from January 3, 2005 until July 1, 2007 with 18 globally distributed ground stations were analysed using different approaches. The analysis was done separately for the two satellites and approaches to estimate the two elastic parameters independently and together were performed. We do a sequential analysis and study the stability of the estimates as a function of length of the data set used. The adjusted final values for h2 equal to 0.6151 ± 0.0008 and 0.6152 ± 0.0008, and those for l2 equal to 0.0886 ± 0.0003 and 0.0881 ± 0.0003 for LAGEOS 1 and LAGEOS 2 tracking data are compared to other independently derived estimates. These parameters and their errors achieve stability at about the 24 and 27 month time interval for h2 and l2, respectively.