Book Description

The report presents the development of a solution for satellite orbits in a nonrotating atmosphere and takes into account the second through fourth zonal harmonics of the gravitational potential. It is basically an extension of Lane's work in that his power-law representation of the atmospheric density function, which implies a linear density scale height, is replaced by a density function with a quadratic density scale height. The quadratic scale height is shown to provide a substantially better fit to the atmospheric density. To integrate the equations of motion analytically, it is necessary to expand the density function in a series. Limitations which appear in the Lane and the Brouwer and Hori theories for small eccentricities, low inclinations, and critical inclinations still exist. (Modified author abstract).