The orbit of 1968-59A, and its use in upper-atmosphere research

Details The orbit of 1968-59A, and its use in upper-atmosphere research The orbit of 1968-59A, and its use in upper-atmosphere research

Nov 1970

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1970p%26ss...18.1585k&link_type=abstract

Planetary and Space Science, Volume 18, Issue 11, p. 1585-1595.

Physics

Scientific paper

Accurate orbits of the high-drag satellite 1968-59A, which had an initial perigee height of 160 km, have been obtained at 9 epochs during its 117-day life with the aid of the R.A.E. orbit determination program PROP. All available optical and radar observations were used. On most of the orbits the perigee height has a standard deviation less than 0.4 km; for the longitude of the node and the inclination i, the average s.d. is 0.003°. The value of i decreased from 89.88° initially to 89.75° just before decay, mainly due to the effect of atmospheric rotation, and by fitting a theoretical curve the following values were obtained for the atmospheric rotational speed, expressed as Λ times the Earth's rotational speed: Λ = 1.20 +/- 0.07 at 170 km height; Λ = 1.1 +/- 0.1 at 150 km.

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