The International GNSS Service's primary product is combined satellite orbit and clock corrections. While aiming for Multi-GNSS Technical Excellence, a consistent approach for combining satellite orbits and clock corrections across constellations is still missing. In 2018, our section developed an advanced combination scheme based on variance component estimation. With a prototype available, several publications, and a successful PhD thesis in 2022, we finally decided to aim to release the software to the international community. Over the past two years, the prototype was transformed into a robust software package.
The Software for Precise Orbit and Clock Combination (SPOCC) is an advanced tool for combining GNSS products for satellite positions and clock corrections via weighted averaging with weights determined by variance component estimation. Different weighting schemes are implemented for constellations, satellite block types, or individual satellites. SPOCC is written in Python, allowing for code extensions, but it is also provided in a Docker environment for easy usage on all platforms.
The software release was announced via IGSmail on Jan 24, 2025. Further information is available at https://gnss.gfz.de/services/spocc.