Abstract: For intersatellite laser ranging from picometers to nanometers level, this paper established the oneway and twoway laser phase comparison models between satellites in GCRS. The general relativity effect was considered in the established models induced by orbit perturbations. In the vicinity of the Earth, simulation studies of satellites with different orbital altitudes were carried out to investigate the phase comparison error resulting from the general relativity effect. Then, the intersatellite laser ranging error was obtained by the phase comparison error. Simulation results show that the minimum laser ranging error of general relativity effect is of the order of 100 picometers, and the maximum error is of the order of 1 micron. It can be concluded that the higher the orbit height, the smaller the intersatellite laser ranging error of general relativity effect, and the larger the distance between satellites, the larger the intersatellite laser ranging error of general relativity effect.

Key words: general relativity, orbit perturbations, laser phase comparison, intersatellite laser ranging, ranging error