Request to make MARI a permanent IGS station

1. Where is the station located? Marion Island (part of the Prince Edward Islands) at the following approximate coordinates: 46°55' S, 37°45' E

2. Is the station currently operating, or planned? If planned, when is the projected date it will become operational? The station has been operational since April 2004. Some communication problems have been experienced since then, but the recently re-established link seems more reliable for daily file uploads.

3. What agencies are responsible for installing, managing, operating, and maintaining the station? The station was installed by the Space Geodesy Programme of the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO), South Africa. HartRAO will be responsible for managing and operating the station. Responsibilities of maintenance will be shared by the South African Nation Antarctic Programme (SANAP) who manages the research base on Marion Island. The receiver and antenna were provided by GFZ Potsdam, while the PC and meteorological unit were provided by JPL.

4. What is the expected operational lifetime of the station? How secure is the funding? The expected lifetime of the station is 20 years. Funding is secure; however, over time it might become difficult to secure space on the research vessel visiting the island to send down maintenance technicians.

5. Will the station replace an existing IGS station? If so, what is the scheduled date of decommissioning? Does the new station offer more capability than the old one? No.

6. Does/will the station meet all of the strictly required IGS site guidelines (http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/guidelines/guidelines.html)? Yes.

7. What is the data delivery schedule? 30-second sampling 24-hour files will be delivered daily, within 3 hours from 00:00 UT.

8. Can you set the receiver for "all in view" tracking (including tracking of satellites set unhealthy)? Yes.

9. Are there currently operating IGS stations within 1000km? Approximately how many? Does this site offer any capabilities the others do not? No other stations within 1000km.

10. What IGS product or project will this site benefit, based on its location, instrumentation, and latency? Final orbit determination, TIGA (in future), troposphere, ionosphere, reference frame.

11. Is this station intended to tie a national datum to the ITRF? Yes.

12. Is there a web page associated with this site (please specify)? If not, please include a site photo or two with this application.

13. Is data available on a public server (please specify)? Automated scripts were put in place to publish the data on HartRAO's Geodesy server (geoid.hartrao.ac.za) which is a public server.

14. Please complete and include a draft site log (http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/igscb/station/general/blank.log) according to the instructions (http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/igscb/station/general/sitelog_instr.txt). · The proposed four character identifier should also be included, but it remains proposed only until confirmed by the CB. Allowed characters are A-Z and 1-9 (numerals may not be used in the first character). You may perform an initial check of the availability using http://sopac.ucsd.edu/scripts/checkSiteID.cgi. If the result is "available" it is certainly available. If this web page indicates it "may already be in use," it might be available for permanent stations anyway. A new 4-char ID is required if a site is moved to a new monument. The 4-char ID has a one-to-one relationship with a monument, except in the case that more than one receiver records data from one antenna. Include intended primary and secondary IGS Data Centers (see http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/organization/centers.html), but it is not necessary to confirm arrangements with the DCs at this stage. Draft site log file attached.

·

·