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News in 1999

The purpose of this page of the CDDIS web site is to post new items, activities, data sets, etc. of interest to the CDDIS user community. Users should also consult the list of upcoming meetings of interest to the space geodesy community.


CDDIS Computer Facility Y2K Plans (02-Dec-99)

NASA GSFC has decided to close the Greenbelt facility to employees starting at 07:00 a.m. EST on December 31, 1999 as a precaution against any Y2K difficulties that may occur. Management has strongly suggested that computer systems be shut down, perhaps as early as the evening of December 30. GSFC has stated that if no problems occur as a result of the new year, the center will open for limited access at noon on January 01, 2000; otherwise, the base will not open until January 03. Therefore, users can expect the CDDIS computer systems to be unavailable for ~36 hours at a minimum, or 3.5 days at most. The CDDIS staff is currently making plans for backup flow of data and will advise the user community as these plans are finalized. We regret the inconvenience this shutdown will cause all our users.

New Query Tools (22-Nov-99)

Several new forms have been created for determining CDDIS data holdings and information. Users can specify various parameters and query the CDDIS Oracle data base to view the results. The following reports can be generated:

  • Query GPS data holdings:
    • by monument name
    • by geographic region
  • Query GLONASS data holdings:
    • by monument name
    • by geographic region
  • Query SLR data holdings:
    • by year and SLR station
    • by year and SLR satellite
  • Query DORIS data holdings:
    • by year and DORIS location
    • by year and DORIS satellite
  • Query address information:
    • by name
    • by ILRS function

Comments and suggestions are welcome and should be directed to Carey Noll.

DORIS Days 2000 Symosium (04-Oct-99)

The DORIS Days 2000 Symposium has been organised by CNES in partnership with the IGN, CLS and GRGS and with the sponsorship of the INSU, the IERS and commission VIII of the International Geodesy Association (CSTG : International Co-ordination of Space Techniques for Geodesy and Geophysics). The purpose of these days is to promote exchanges between different designers, operators and users of the DORIS system by presenting the results obtained since the system was placed in orbit. These results concern precise orbit determination and location with their respective applications, as well as all other spheres in which DORIS applications are used (gravitational field, ionosphere, troposphere...).

This second version of these Doris Days will in particular be devoted to a review of the start-up of the Doris Pilot Experiment decided upon by the CSTG (IUGG, July 1999, Birmingham) for the purpose of creating an International Doris Service and of presenting the technological changes which have been made to the system (Jason, Envisat and SPOT5 missions, 3rd generation beacons).

CDDIS Computer Node Number Changes (01-Oct-99)

The IP node numbers of the computers supporting the CDDIS archive, operational on host cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov and the old VAX system cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov, were changed at 17:00 EST on September 30, 1999. The new numbers are:

  • 128.183.102.102 (cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov)
  • 128.183.102.103 (cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov)

CDDIS Computer Problems (02-Sep-99)

On August 21, 1999 the CDDIS computer cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov experienced a hard disk failure. This problem affected the CDDIS and ILRS web sites as well as the ftp data archive of GPS, GLONASS, and SLR data. The disk has since been repaired. As of to day, all SLR and GLONASS data and products have been fully restored along with other general ftp files and the CDDIS and ILRS web sites. The GPS data and product archive is currently in the process of restoration. In the meantime, a temporary area has been established to house recent GPS data and products. We hope to have the entire on-line archive of GPS data and products restored in the very near future. We also regret all the problems this outage has caused the user community. Furthermore, we would like to thank our data suppliers and the IGS Central Bureau for their patience and assistance during this difficult time.

IGEX Workshop – Abstracts Available (06-Aug-99)

The IGEX-98 Workshop will be held in conjunction with the ION Satellite Division's 12th International Technical Meeting GPS-99 in Nashville, Tennessee (U.S.). Abstracts of papers to presented at the workshop are now available.

IGEX Workshop -- Draft Agenda Available (30-Jun-99)

The IGEX-98 Workshop will be held in conjunction with the ION Satellite Division's 12th International Technical Meeting GPS-99 in Nashville, Tennessee (U.S.). A preliminary program agenda for the workshop is now available.

CDDIS Web Site Update (30-Jun-99)

A web site search engine and site map have just been added to the CDDIS Web Site.

CDDIS Computer Move (01-Jun-99)

The computers supporting the CDDIS archive, operational on host cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov and the old VAX system cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov, were relocated to a new building at GSFC on Thursday, June 3, 1999. New IP numbers were assigned to these computers:

  • 128.183.105.199 (cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov)
  • 128.183.105.198 (cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov)

IGEX Workshop -- Second Circular (15-Apr-99)

The IGEX-98 Steering Committee, the ION and the IGS are organizing a joint workshop on September 13-14, 1999 to discuss the results of IGEX-98 and possible plans for the future. This workshop will be held in conjunction with the ION Satellite Division's 12th International Technical Meeting GPS-99 in Nashville, Tennessee (U.S.). The IGEX workshop will be run as a separate event prior to the GPS-99 conference. It will be held in the Nashville Convention Center, and will be the forum for this year's meeting of the ION GLONASS-GPS Interoperability Working Group (GGIWG). A separate registration fee will be required for all attendees of the workshop as indicated below. (Workshop attendees who also wish to attend ION's GPS-99 Technical Meeting after the workshop ends will be required to pay the standard conference registration fee.) The workshop will be an opportunity for participants to present and compare their findings, observations, and analyses resulting from the IGEX campaign. It will be a time to assess whether or not the objectives of the experiment were met and to discuss future plans for using and supporting GLONASS. Anyone is welcome to attend and participate. The second circular and call for abstracts, as well as the workshop registration form, are now available.

Office Relocations (23-Feb-99)

In late February, personnel from the Space Geodesy Program at GSFC, including the Space Geodesy Networks and Sensor Calibration Office (Code 920.1), the Geoscience Technology Office (920.3), the Space Geodesy Branch (Code 926), and the CDDIS (Code 920.1) relocated to a new building at GSFC. This move has required a change in phone numbers; new numbers known at the time of publication are shown in the table below. The old phone numbers can be used until the end of March; most of the affected personnel have left their new phone numbers on their voice mail recordings.

The CDDIS computer facility is not scheduled to move to the new building until mid-summer. Notices will be sent out via email and published in the CDDIS Bulletin as move dates are known.

Access to SLR Data through the CDDIS (01-Jan-99)

The CDDIS staff is pleased to announce that the SLR data archiving and processing activities are now operational on the UNIX platform:

Host name: cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov
Host number: 128.183.204.168
Access: anonymous ftp and web

All data filenames are in lower case, with the exception of the .Z indicating a compressed file.

As of December 1, 1998 the host cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov was operational for SLR data archiving. For the next month or two, the CDDIS staff will continue to maintain the archive of SLR data on the VAX (host cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov by copying data from cddisa back to the VAX. Users should, however, transition their software to use the UNIX host as soon as possible. Any questions or problems should be directed to Carey Noll.