Orbit Determination and Analysis of Cosmos 220 Rocket at Resonance, to Evaluate 29th-Order Harmonics

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Orbit Determination and Analysis of Cosmos 220 Rocket at Resonance, to Evaluate 29th-Order Harmonics

D. M. Walker

The orbital parameters of Cosmo 220 rocket (1967-40B) have been determined at 74 epochs from some 6300 observations. For 38 of the determinations, Hewitt camera observations were available. The orbit was determined from January 1983 until July 1985, and during this time the satellite passed through 29:2 resonance. The variations in inclination and eccentricity have been analysed to determine six lumped geopotential harmonics of order 29. The first two have standard deviations equivalent to accuracies of 0.3 and 0.6 cm in geoid height, better than has previously been determined for order 29 by resonance analysis or any other method. The standard deviations of the other four values correspond to accuracies between 1.2 and 3.5 cm in geoid height. The results are independent of recent comprehensive geoid models and are used to test five such models: The comparisons show that the estimated errors given for the models are quite realistic. Keywords: Orbit determination; Satellite orbits; Geopotential; Resonance; Orbit analysis; Great Britain. (JHD)