Accession Number:

ADA411765

Title:

SPOTR

Descriptive Note:

Interim rept.

Corporate Author:

NAVAL RESEARCH LAB WASHINGTON DC

Personal Author(s):

• Shapiro, A.
• Uliana, E. A.
• Yaplee, B. S.

Report Date:

1970-03-25

Pagination or Media Count:

26.0

Abstract:

Present operational requirements need a simple method to accurately determine the position and height of terrestrial locations on a worldwide basis. Recently, artificial satellites have been used as radar reference points in the sky for determining the position and height of such locations. Satellite systems such as Secor 1 have shown that it is possible to achieve accuracies of the order of a few meters under optimum conditions. However, the unknown variations of the satellites orbit require the placing of several reference ground stations close to the unknown location, so that simultaneous observations will reduce the satellite orbit errors. If the position and height of widely separated locations are needed, the method becomes quite cumbersome, for it requires the repeated physical relocation of the ground reference stations.

Descriptors:

• *ARTIFICIAL SATELLITES
• *RADAR NAVIGATION
• POSITION(LOCATION)
• ACCURACY
• GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM
• RANGE(DISTANCE)
• HEIGHT
• GROUND STATIONS
• EXTRATERRESTRIAL TOPOGRAPHY

Subject Categories:

• Unmanned Spacecraft

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE