International Laser Ranging Service

ILRS GOVERNING BOARD MEETING

Deggendorf, Germany
September 25, 1998

The ILRS Governing Board had its first meeting in Deggendorf. Members of the Governing Board and their email addresses are included in Attachment 1.

Attendees: John Bosworth, Michael Pearlman, Werner Gurtner, Wolfgang Schlueter, Hiroo Kunimori, Yang FuMin, David Carter, John Degnan, Ron Noomen, Richard Eanes, Wolfgang Seemueller, Peter Shelus, and John Luck

ILRS Web Site

The ILRS web site is located at:

http://ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/

All participants are invited to review the material and send comments to Carey Noll (noll@cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov) and Van Husson (Van.Husson@honeywell-tsi.com). Each organization within the ILRS will be responsible for keeping its web pages current. The Central Bureau will help load your information. Assignments will be made by November 1.

ILRS Governing Board Organization

John Degnan was unanimously elected as Governing Board Chairperson for one 2-year term to oversee a transition period. It was agreed that the Ex-Officio Members of the Board could not hold the chairperson position.

Central Bureau

Eurolas has named Georg Kirchner as the Eurolas Coordinator for the Central Bureau. The WPLTN and the NASA Network still need to name their coordinator.

Working Groups

Coordinators and deputies for the Working Groups were selected. All appointed and elected GB members (with the exception of the Chairperson and IERS Rep) were asked to volunteer to serve on at least one of the Working Groups. The Working Group Coordinators were charged to invite members of the ILRS community to serve on their respective committees by November 1, 1998. The current Working Group membership is as follows:

Analysis	Ron Noomen, Coordinator Peter Shelus, Deputy Coordinator Richard Eanes
Data Formats and Procedures	John Luck, Coordinator Wolfgang Seemueller, Deputy Coordinator Ron Noomen
Missions	Hiroo Kunimori, Coordinator Francois Barlier, Deputy Coordinator Peter Shelus
Networks and Engineering	Werner Gurtner, Coordinator Wolfgang Schlueter, Deputy Coordinator David Carter Yang FuMin

Names of ILRS members outside the Governing Board were suggested to serve on the various Working Groups and it is the responsibility of the Coordinator to contact them directly to formalize their membership.

By November 1, 1998, all Working Group Coordinators should:

• form their working group teams;
• review the Terms of Reference and their Working Group charters;
• develop their list of priority items; and
• assign someone the responsibility for web page update.

The Missions Working Group will prepare a Mission Support Applications Form for the Central Bureau to use for new missions support requests. The Secretary will send the Missions Coordinator, Hiroo Kunimori, copies of some examples of Mission Support Plans.

IGEX 98 Campaign

At its meeting in Nice in April, the SLR/LLR Subcommission of the CSTG agreed to support the IGEX 98 campaign provided:

• the SLR analysis groups agreed to participate in IGEX 98;
• the IGEX 98 Committee identify a subset of the GLONASS satellites to be included in the experiment; and
• the Russian Mission Control Center, the "owner of the satellites", agree to the international laser tracking campaign.

All three conditions have been met and the IGEX98 Committee has identified nine GLONASS satellites (three in each plane) as SLR targets. These are:

In response, the ILRS Governing Board has temporarily assigned a higher priority to these satellites than the GPS-35 and GPS-36 satellites for the duration of the campaign. The campaign will be conducted from 19 October 1998 through 19 January 1999

Concern was expressed at the ILRS General Assembly that stations with limited resources might have difficulty allocating tracking time among these satellites. The Governing Board has therefore requested that ILRS stations place a higher priority on two of the nine satellites to help the stations more effectively allocate their resources.

The Governing Board has instructed the Central Bureau to:

• elevate the SLR tracking priority of the nine identified GLONASS satellites to priority above that of the GPS satellites during the IGEX98 Campaign; and
• select two of these nine satellites for highest priority among the GLONASS constellation, with selection being made on the basis of visibility and coverage.

The Central Bureau will look at the visibilities of the nine GLONASS satellites and select candidates for the two higher priority positions during the Campaign period.

ILRS Logo Contest

The winning concept for the new ILRS logo was submitted jointly by K. Elango from India and Dr. Pino from Santiago de Cuba Station.Congratulations.

Special Notes

The ILRS notes the retirement of Andy Sinclair from RGO. The Central Bureau will prepare a letter for Andy.

Next Meeting

Two options are under consideration for the next meeting of the ILRS Governing Board: EGS in the Hague in April, or AGU in Boston in May. We will poll the members for preference.

ATTACHMENT 1

ILRS GOVERNING BOARD MEMBERS

Ex-Officio Members: John Bosworth (Director, Central Bureau) Michael Pearlman (Secretary, Central Bureau) Gerhard Beutler (CSTG President)	jmb@ltpmail.gsfc.nasa.gov pearlman@cfa.harvard.edu beutler@aiub.unibe.ch
Appointed Members: Bob Schutz (IERS representative to ILRS) Werner Gurtner (Eurolas Network Rep.) Wolfgang Schlueter (Eurolas Network Rep.) Hiroo Kunimori (WPLTN Network Rep.) Yang FuMin (WPLTN Network Rep.) David Carter (NASA Network Rep.) John Degnan (NASA Network Rep.)	schutz@csrv86.ae.utexas.edu gurtner@aiub.unibe.ch schlueter@wettzell.ifag.de kuni@crl.go.jp yangfm@center.shao.ac.cn dcarter@eib1.gsfc.nasa.gov jjd@ltpmail.gsfc.nasa.gov
Elected Members: Ron Noomen (Analysis Center Rep.) Richard Eanes (Analysis Center Rep.) Wolfgang Seemueller (Data Center Rep.) Peter Shelus (Lunar Rep.) John Luck (At Large Rep.) Francois Barlier (At Large Rep.)	ron.noomen@lr.tudelft.nl eanes@csr.utexas.edu seemueller@tum-muenchen.de pjs@astro.as.utexas.edu johnluck@auslig.gov.au barlier@ocar01.obs-azur.fr