The International Earth Rotation Service (IERS) was established in 1988.
In October, 1990 at Virginia Beach (USA), the Directing Board of the
IERS approved the designation of two technical development centers of
VLBI, which are the Haystack Observatory and the Communications
Research Laboratory (CRL). The IERS strategy was discussed within the
Directing Board held on 11th July 1995 at Boulder during the XXI IUGG
General Assembly (See the Report on the IERS Directing Board Meeting
No.16) . One of the most important actions decided to be taken was to
distribute the CALL FOR PROPOSALS to the VLBI community to reorganize
the structure of the IERS. The meaning of this action was explained.
In January of 1996, CRL proposed to continue to work as a VLBI technical
development center. It is said that the discussion on the selection of
the proposal will be held in October, 1996.