Development of Finite Element Models for the Earth's Gravity Field. Phase I. Macro Gravity Model for Satellite Orbit Integration.

摘要

As alternatives to lengthy globally valid series representations of the geopotential, piecewise modeling for the gravity field is investigated. A degree 23 spherical harmonic representation is replaced by 1500 local gravity functions within the spherical shell from 1 to 1.2 earth radii. Worst case acceleration errors enter in the 7th significant digit, computational speed is improved by an order of magnitude. (Author)