Techniques for Generating a 'Real World' Ephemeris

摘要

The report documents the procedure for generating a real world ephemeris tape to be used by The Aerospace Corporation and selected contractors in Phase 0 of the Autonomous Navigation System (ANS) contract. A real world geopotential model was developed by modifying a state-of-the-art reference geopotential, using Kaula's degree variances as a guide. To obtain real world atmosphere data, the acceleration profile experienced by the first in a recent series of low altitude satellites to have an on-board low-g accelerometer was suitably scaled. The resulting ephemeris is displayed and subjected to various consistency tests. (Author)