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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

This book presents the basic ideas of the physics of the main non-gravitational perturbations and the mathematics of the methods required to compute their orbital effects. The authors convey to the reader the relevance of the different problems that need to be solved to achieve a given level of accuracy in the orbit determination and in the recovery of geophysically significant parameters. The book will enable readers to assess for themselves the possible geodetic uses of given space missions, or maybe to propose a new one, or to propose a combined geodetic use for a mission envisaged for other purposes.

(Extracted from the dust jacket)

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-1-Introduction.

-2- The Perturbations.

-3- Tools from Celestial Mechanics.

-4- Solar Radiation Pressure: Direct Effects.

-5- Radiation Pressure: Indirect Effects.

-6- Drag.

-7- Manoeuvres.

-References.

-Index.

OUR REVIEW

The theory of non-gravitational perturbations has always been a complicated, very important subject for the designers of the space vehicles. The satellites not only control their orbits through the gravitational relationship they have with the Earth and the other bodies of the Solar System, but also are affected by the pressure of the solar wind, atmospheric friction, etc. In this sense, this little work gathers in one single volume the most essential mathematical information on the matter, and to this end it offers to the interested readers the necessary tools for their own studies.

Geodesy via satellite, i.e. the definition of certain geophysical parameters from space, greatly depends on the precision in the determination of the orbit of the measurer object, so the discipline that Milani et al. examine here has currently great, important applications. Naturally, the mathematical level of this volume makes it advisable for the reader to have a good background in this respect, yet in any case, the authors give all possible explanations, step by step, rendering their work into a truly small textbook on this subject.