The International DORIS Service July 2003 – December 2005 report

2 HISTORY
IDS Report – July 2003 to December 2005 6
The DORIS system was designed and developed by CNES, the French space agency, in
partnership with the space geodesy research institute GRGS and France’s mapping and survey
agency IGN for precise orbit determination of altimeter missions and consequently also for
geodetic ground station positioning (Tavernier et al. 2003).
DORIS joined the GPS, laser and VLBI techniques as a contributor to the IERS in the
framework of ITRF-94. In order to collect, merge, analyze, archive and distribute observation
data sets and products, the IGS was established and recognized as a scientific service of the
IAG in 1994, followed by the ILRS in 1998 and the IVS in 1999. It is clear that DORIS has
benefited from the experience gained by these earlier services.
There was an increasing demand in the late nineties among the international scientific
community, particularly the IAG and the IERS, for a similar service dedicated to the DORIS
technique.
On the occasion of the CSTG (Coordination of Space Technique in Geodesy) and IERS
Directing Board meetings, held during the IUGG General Assembly in Birmingham in July 1999,
it was decided to initiate a DORIS Pilot Experiment (Tavernier et al. 2002) that could lead on the
long-term to the establishment of such an IDS. A joint CSTG/IERS Call for Participation in the
DORIS Pilot Experiment was issued on 10 September 1999. An international network of 54
tracking stations was then contributing to the system and 11 proposals for new DORIS stations
were submitted. Ten proposals were submitted for Analysis Centers (ACs). Two Global Data
Centers (NASA/CDDIS in USA and IGN/LAREG in France) already archived DORIS
measurements and were ready to archive IDS products. The Central Bureau was established at
the CNES Toulouse Centre, as a joint initiative between CNES, CLS (Collecte Localisation
Satellites) and IGN (Institut Géographique National).
The IDS Central Bureau and the Analysis Coordinator initiated several Analysis Campaigns
(see chapter 8 about Pilot and early IDS campaigns).
Several meetings were organized in the framework of the DORIS Pilot Experiment:
- DORIS Days were held in Toulouse in May 2000 (see programme and contributions in
http://ids.cls.fr/html/report/doris_days_2000/programme.html),
- an IDS Workshop was held in Biarritz in June 2002 (see programme and contributions in
http://lareg.ensg.ign.fr/IDS/events/biarritz.html),
- an IDS Analysis Workshop was held in Marne La Vallée in February 2003 (see
programme and contributions in http://lareg.ensg.ign.fr/IDS/events/prog_2003.html).