The project
Within this
international geodetic project students from Austria and Chile plan to
determine accurately the ellipsoidal height of Aconcagua, the highest
mountain in the western hemisphere. Another goal is to connect the highest
point of continental America to the Observatory TIGO in Concepcion/Chile which is
the only fundamental station in South America and a great contribution to
the world reference frame.
The project
is supported by Septentrio, the Belgian manufacturer of high-end dual
frequency GNSS recievers. Two recievers of the latest generation have been
used for the measurements in February 2005. Both, scientific and financial
support has also been provided by Prof. Weber of the
Institut fuer Geodaesie
und Geophysik, Abteilung fuer Hoehere Geodaesie, Vienna University of
Technology.
The very top
of Aconcagua has been marked out in order to guarantee reproducibility of
the measurements. This is important in order to gain comparability of this
mission's results with those of future expeditions.
The
coordinates of the mountain peak will be determined in the ITRF 2000
(International Terrestrial Reference Frame). For this purpose the
surrounding permanent GPS stations will be used as reference stations. The
calculations will be carried out with the latest Bernese 5.0 Processing
Software.
