Satellite Orbits: Models, Methods and Applications (Physics and astronomy online library): Models, Methods and Applications (Physics and astronomy online ... (Physics and astronomy online library)
£40.00
An excellent and practical guide - The authors of this book are with DLR (German space agency) and are to be congratulated on producing a readable, practical and quite in-depth guide to satellite orbits and the methods of orbit determination.It is refreshing to find a book written by those actively involved in doing such work, and this shows in the advice and guidance that runs through the various chapters on the magnitude of various effects and when they can and cannot be ignored. Ever wondered how many Earth gravity terms are needed for useful accuracy? How they relate to the magnitude of typical atmospheric drag forces? Well, chapter 3 has exercises illustrating this and the accompanying CD-ROM has the source code so you can try variations on the same theme.Indeed, perhaps the CD-ROM alone is enough to justify buying this book. Most engineers prefer to learn by trying things, and the CD-ROM has working code for a reasonably accurate numerical prediction model. There are a few catches, e.g. they simply turn off atmospheric drag below the minimum tabulated height, but otherwise it is a very useful starting point for anyone interested in satellite orbits. It features a 20x20 gravity table and is moderately efficient, although the C++ implementation lets this down a bit (as supplied, around 50% of CPU time is spent on new/delete). However, they generally use a numerical integrator that is effectively based on the slatec ddeabm() subroutine. This is a good choice as it offers automatic control of step size and order, simply doing the job efficiently with little additional user input other than the requested tolerance.As they are interested in high precision orbit determination they only really consider the numerical integration methods, although they do mention the GPS orbit model in the Appendix. It would have been nice to also have included something about common low precision propagators such as SGP4/SDP4 and Brouwer-Lyddane which are often used for scheduling, etc, but this is a minor criticism.Another minor criticism is the lack of practical information about common file formats for exchange of orbit data, such as IIRV, but this is more of a personal annoyance as a web search for such data yields little comprehensive answers, other than the occasional cross reference to NASA documents not in general circulation.In summary, this is one of the best book purchases I have made recently and I would strongly recommend it.
Superb textbook on maths of Satellite Orbit determinations - Satellite Orbits, Models, Methods and Applications is a great reference on Satellite orbit computation/determination. Chapters include, 1. Around the world in hundred minutes 2. Introductory Astrodynamics 3. Force Model 4.Numerical Integration 5. Time and Reference Systems 6. Satellite Tracking and Observation Models 7. Linearization 8. Orbit Determination and Parameter Estimation 9. Applications + Apendices and list of symbols.This book’s emphasis is on the mathematical methods and algorithms used in modern satellite trajectory computations. It also contains extensive list of WWW URLs on spaceflight dynamics.Hardcover book measures 24 X 16 centimeters, contains 370 glossy pages with a dozen of color photos in the first chapter but lots of graphics ( Ground projections of satellite orbits, perturbations of satellite orbits, orbit determination analysis, … ) and comes with a CD-ROM on the applications usable in Win98 / NT4.0 or Linux SUSE 7.2.Excellent textbook designed for post-graduate students and engineers working in the field of spaceflight dynamics, navigation and geodesy.Philip CORNEILLE