1. The Matera Laser Ranging Observatory FSP-06, Frascati, Italy, 21-23 March 2006 Giuseppe Bianco Centro di Geodesia Spaziale, ASI – Matera, Italy

2. SLR concept

3. LAGEOS

4. Starlette Stella LAGEOS-I LAGEOS-II Etalon-I & -II GFZ-1 Ajisai Inclination Perigee (km) diameter (cm) mass (kg) 98.6° 800 24 47.3 50° 810 24 47.3 52.6° 5,620 60 405.4 109.8° 5,860 60 411 50° 1,490 215 685 51.6° 396 20 20.6 64.8° 19,120 129.4 1415 Geodetic satellites

6. Lunar targets

7. Lunar reflectors

8. Centro di Geodesia Spaziale Giuseppe Colombo Matera, Italy

10. u Day & night, 1- and 2-color ranging capability to satellites from 400 km orbit to the Moon u Single-shot RMS jitter 5 mm on LAGEOS ( 1 mm NP) 5 mm on Starlette, ERS ( 1 mm NP) 15 mm on Etalon, Glonass ( 3 mm NP) 15 mm on Moon ( 10 mm NP) MLRO specifications u Astronomical quality telescope, 1 pointing accuracy, 1.5 m aperture

11. TX-RX table

12. LAGEOS II observations from MLRO Residuals (cm) Number of observations Lageos 2 pass on 98/10/15 pass length = 46 min. number of obs. = 21945 return rate = 80% rms= 5.08 mm skewness = 0.17 kurtosis = -0.13 Lageos 2 pass on 98/10/15 pass length = 46 min. number of obs. = 21945 return rate = 80% rms= 5.08 mm skewness = 0.17 kurtosis = -0.13

14. Ajisai residual analysis

15. LAGEOS I residual analysis

16. Time (sec) from the pass start Lageos 2 pass on 29/05/2000 number of obs. = 14481 mean = 0.00 mm rms= 5.67 mm Shot-by-shot residuals (mm) LAGEOS II MLRO observations

17. LAGEOS II residual analysis (October 15, 1998)

18. LAGEOS II residual analysis (May 29, 2000)

19. Observed LAGEOS-2 down-spinning rate (exponential fit) Year Rotation Period (s) post-fit RMS 88.5 ms Down-spinning rate: factor of 2 every 1.5 years factor of 10 every 4.9 years Period (s) = 11.1 * e (Year-1998.79)/ 2.1

20. MLRO lunar observations

22. MLRO MM C-MENDES MLRO MM C-MENDES Two color SLR

23. Differences wrt MLRO DD C-MENDES MM MENDES

24. Quantum telecommunications

25. Conclusions u Two-color capable (355 & 532 nm), Moon capable u Ready for other experiments (transponders, quantum, active optics) u Severe funding problems u Millimeter-level single shot precision