19th International Workshop on Laser Ranging a great successRelease Date: 11/18/2014 The 19th International Laser Ranging Workshop was hosted by NASA GSFC from October 27-31, 2014 in Annapolis, Maryland. October 31 marks the 50th anniversary of the first successful Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) measurement which occurred at the Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory (GGAO) in 1964. The theme for this workshop, "Celebrating 50 Years of SLR: Remembering the Past and Planning for the Future" allowed the community to look back on its many accomplishments and to present plans for future advances in SLR technology and science. Sponsors for the Workshop were NASA, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), and the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS). The Workshop was organized by Carey Noll (NASA GSFC, CDDIS DAAC Manager), Jan McGarry (NASA GSFC), Mike Pearlman (SAO) and Stephen Merkowitz (NASA GSFC) and was attended by approximately 180 participants from 25 countries.

On Monday, the history of SLR was given in a series of six invited talks by the pioneers in the field. The afternoon was devoted to invited science talks showing SLR's positive impact on various NASA and international missions.

In addition to the events in Annapolis, the participants were given a day-long tour of GSFC and GGAO, including tours of the Goddard Visitor's Center, Building 7 Integration and Testing facilities, Building 29 James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) integration and testing, and tours of the NASA next generation space geodesy systems at GGAO. A Goddard Joint Engineering and Scientific Colloquium on Wednesday featured a seminar by John Degnan, "A Celebration of Fifty Years of Satellite Laser Ranging." John's talk was introduced with a few words from GSFC Center Director, Chris Scolese.

A new format for a station operations session was introduced at this workshop where ILRS experts met in small groups of station engineers and operators to provide solutions to common station problems, information to maintain station stability, and guidelines for interacting with the analysts in determining station biases. These station clinics were well attended and received by workshop attendees.

A highlight of the Workshop was a speech and question and answer session at Thursday evening's banquet given by Dr. Piers Sellers, GSFC Deputy Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate and NASA astronaut.

There were 81 oral presentations and 70+ posters at the Workshop. The Goddard participants were authors or co-authors of over 30 of these, with many highlighting the new Space Geodesy Satellite Laser Ranging (SGSLR) Systems and the Next Generation Space Geodesy Network. SGSLR and the Space Geodesy Network will be built by Space Geodesy Project at Goddard for global deployment over the coming decade.

This workshop in Annapolis and GSFC proved to be a very successful gathering of international experts in the field of satellite laser ranging. The workshop website (https://cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov/lw19) will soon be updated with presentations, posters, summaries, and photos from the week.