The 2008 Local-tie Survey at the Onsala Space Observatory

We describe an innovative approach to perform a local-tie survey at a fundamental geodetic station. The work was performed in September 2008 at the Onsala Space Observatory and used a laser tracker as survey instrument. Both the reference point of the radio telescope used for geodetic VLBI and the local tie between the latter and the reference point for GNSS measurements were determined. The application of the laser tracker allowed fast survey work and resulted in accurate coordinates with complete covariance information in a local true cartesian coordinate system. This project is highly relevant for the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS).