Determination and analysis of the orbit of Meteor 28 (1977-57A) at 154 epochs during 15th-order resonance

Abstract

The orbit of Meteor 28 (1977-57A) has been determined at 154 epochs between 8 January 1984 and 18 July 1989 during which the orbit was perturbed by 15th-order resonance with the geopotential. In total 9521 observations were used in the orbit determination process, the majority of which were supplied by the U.S. Navy. The remainder were British radar, visual and Hewitt camera observations. The variations in the inclination and eccentricity have been analysed to determine six lumped harmonics of order 15 and four of order 30 with accuracies of between 0.4 and 4.4 cm in geoid height. Since the orbit of Meteor 28 was Sun-synchronous, many sources of perturbation of the orbit (solar gravity, tidal effects, solar radiation pressure and drag) were enhanced by solar resonance. The removal of perturbations from the inclination and eccentricity to isolate the geopotential resonance effects posed a significant challenge in the analysis.