Compression of lageos laser data

Since the first generation of satellite laser tracking stations, techniques have continuously improved; passes containing several thousands of range data are now common. For various reasons, such as data transmission problems or difficulties in processing the whole data set, quick-look data or samples are often used, though they lead to a loss-of information. In this paperm, we have investigated a way of compressing LAGEOS laser data into normal points using a simple reference orbit. For assessing their accuracy, these normal points have been compared, by the way of a global processing, to those derived by the University of Texas in a different way. Finally the whole set of raw data obtained during the three months of the MERIT short campaign have been compressed into normal points using this method. Evaluation of the external precision of these normal points has been performed by comparison with another series; the pole component evaluations show precisions similar to those obtained from raw data solutions.