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IERS Message No. 69                                    February 18, 2005
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PhD or Postdoctoral position within the Descartes Prize << Nutation >>

Project GALILEO

In November 2003, the Descartes Prize was awarded to a European 
consortium of scientists lead by V. Dehant and a certain amount of money
was received. The consortium decided to use it for PhD or postdoctoral
positions in the frame of research on the understanding of the next
decimal in nutation. After an open call for proposals several research
projects and travel grants were accepted by a review board.
For one of these projects, called "GALILEO", a PhD or postdoctoral
fellowship for 6 months to one year (a further extension is rather 
likely) is offered here.

Nutations are mainly observed using VLBI and partly by GPS for the short
periods. The upcoming European Galileo system, as well as the
modernization of GPS will allow better precisions of all parameters,
including the nutations. The new combined GPS/GALILEO constellations and
the future GNSS signals can lead to a better determination, not only of
short period nutations, but also of all the important geophysical
nutations, provided that long enough data series exist. Furthermore, as
each space geodetic technique has its own strengths but also 
limitations, combinations of nutation time series based on VLBI, GPS, 
and Galileo are foreseen in the future. Moreover, combinations on the
SINEX level and on the observational level will also be done. One part
of the project will include a detailed study using simulated Galileo
data.

Specialists in the nutation modeling and nutation computation using GPS
and VLBI are at TU Vienna (Robert Weber, Harald Schuh) and at ROB,
Brussels (Fabian Roosbeek, Carine Bruyninx, Véronique Dehant).
Additionally, Jim Ray (NOAA) and Markus Rothacher (GFZ, Potsdam) have 
also been working on that problem and are consequently advisor of this
project as well.

We foresee one or two PhD students or post-docs for 6 months or one year
for working at ROB in Brussels and/or at Vienna TU preferably in
international exchange. The project GALILEO is supposed to start as soon
as possible in 2005. Applications should be sent to Veronique Dehant
(v.dehant@oma.be) until March 15, 2005.


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