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A new realization of the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF) is presented based on the work achieved by a working group of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) mandated for this purpose. This new realization, referred to as ICRF3, is based on nearly 40 years of data acquired by very long baseline interferometry. The ICRF3 includes positions at 8.4 GHz for 4536 sources, supplemented with positions at 24 GHz for 824 sources and at 32 GHz for 678 sources, for a total of 4588 sources. A subset of 303 sources among these, uniformly distributed on the sky, are identified as "defining sources" and as such serve to define the axes of the frame. Source positions are reported for epoch 2015.0 and must be propagated for observations at other epochs for the most accurate needs, accounting for the acceleration toward the Galactic center, which results in a dipolar proper motion field of amplitude 0.0058 milliarcsecond/yr (mas/yr). The frame shows a median positional uncertainty of about 0.1 mas in right ascension and 0.2 mas in declination, with a noise floor of 0.03 mas in the individual source coordinates. A subset of 500 sources is found to have extremely accurate positions at 8.4 GHz, in the range of 0.03 to 0.06 mas. Comparing ICRF3 with the Gaia Celestial Reference Frame 2 in the optical domain, there is no evidence for deformations larger than 0.03 mas between the two frames. Significant positional offsets between the three ICRF3 frequencies are detected for about 5% of the sources. Moreover, a notable fraction (22%) of the sources shows optical and radio positions that are significantly offset. There are indications that these positional offsets may be the manifestation of extended source structures. This third realization of the ICRF was adopted by the IAU at its 30th General Assembly in August 2018 and replaced the previous realization, ICRF2, on January 1, 2019., Comment: 28 pages, 22 figures

In our standard geodetic VLBI solutions, we estimate the positions of quasars assuming that their positions do not vary in time. However, in solutions estimating proper motion, a significant number of quasars show apparent proper motion greater than 50 uas/yr. For individual quasars, there are source structure effects that cause apparent proper motion. To examine how coherent the pattern of apparent proper motion is over the sky, we have estimated the vector spherical harmonic components of the observed proper motion using VLBI data from 1980 to 2002. We discuss the physical interpretation of the estimated harmonic components., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Future Directions in High Resolution Astronomy: The 10th Anniversary of the VLBA

A catalog containing milliarcsecond--accurate positions of 1332 extragalactic radio sources distributed over the northern sky is presented - the Very Long Baseline Array Calibrator Survey (VCS1). The positions have been derived from astrometric analysis of dual-frequency 2.3 and 8.4 GHz VLBA snapshot observations; in a majority of cases, images of the sources are also available. These radio sources are suitable for use in geodetic and astrometric experiments, and as phase-reference calibrators in high-sensitivity astronomical imaging. The VCS1 is the largest high-resolution radio survey ever undertaken, and triples the number of sources available to the radio astronomy community for VLBI applications. In addition to the astrometric role, this survey can be used in active galactic nuclei, Galactic, gravitational lens and cosmological studies. The VCS1 catalog will soon be available at www.nrao.edu/vlba/VCS1 ., Comment: 25 pages, 5 figures. Accepted to ApJS

Analysis of the time series at the 3-4 multi-technique GGOS sites to analyze and compare the spectral content of the space geodetic and gravity time series. Evaluate the level of agreement between the space geodesy measurements and the physical tie vectors.

IGN and DGFI both generated realizations of the terrestrial reference frame under the auspices of the IERS from combination of the same space geodetic data. We compared the IGN and DGFI TRFs with a GSFC CALC/SOLVE TRF. WRMS position and velocity differences for the 40 most frequently observed sites were 2-3 mm and 0.3-0.4 mm/year. There was a scale difference of 0.39/0.09 ppb between the IGN/DGFI realizations and the GSFC solution. When we fixed positions and velocities to either the IGN or DGFI values in CALC/SOLVE solutions, the resulting EOP estimates were not significantly different from the estimates from a standard TRF solution.