Satellite laser ranging orbital solutions, using observations of satellites LAGEOS and LAGEOS-2 collected from 2000 to 2017, were used to test the performance of two reference frame realisations, ITRF2014 and DTRF2014.
We compare the post-fit residuals from solutions where only initial conditions and orbit parameters were solved for, leaving apriori coordinates unchanged. We examine some differences that arise, and explore the behaviour of SLR sites affected by earthquake events. The combined ILRS-A solution, input for both reference frames, is compared to each TRF as well, and disparities discussed. The main finding of this exercise is that the scales of the SLR subnetworks of both TRF products differ by approximately 0.6 ppb, resulting from an unchanged scale of DTRF2014 relative to the input ILRS site coordinates, as opposed to the average frame scale between the VLBI and SLR networks employed in ITRF2014.
Analysis of the residuals obtained here, as well as the site coordinates estimated from solutions computed outside the scope of this work, indicate that ITRF2014 is less subject on average to the effects of systematic errors present in the input solutions, although by no means exempt.