Tesseral Harmonic Coefficients and Station Coordinates from Satellite Observations by Collocation,

Abstract

The usual formulation of the least squares collocation method requires the inversion of matrices with dimensions equal to the number of observations. Such a procedure poses difficult numerical problems when large numbers of observations are involved. It is shown in this report how this difficulty can be overcome. The size of the matrices to be inverted can be reduced to the number of unknown quantities, i.e. the amount of numerical work will be the same as for the corresponding adjustment problem. Numerical questions as the treatment of orbital parameters, the determination of the speed of convergence, the stability of different solutions, and the choice of a covariance function are discussed. The determination of tesseral harmonic coefficients from a combination of satellite and gravimetric data is treated in some detail and the results are related to previous work.

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1974
Accession Number
ADA009629

Entities

People

  • Klaus-peter Schwarz

Organizations

  • Ohio State University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Satellites
  • Coefficients
  • Convergence
  • Covariance
  • Data Science
  • Information Science
  • Inversion
  • Observation

Fields of Study

  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Calculus or Mathematical Analysis
  • Space Exploration and Orbital Mechanics.

Technology Areas

  • Space