GEOPOTENTIAL HARMONICS OF ORDER 15 AND 30 FROM ANALYSIS OF 50 ORBIT DETERMINATIONS OF 1967-102B

The orbital parameters of the satellite 1967-102B, Cosmos 184 rocket, have been determined at 50 epochs from some 3900 observations. For 21 of these determinations, Hewitt camera observations were available. During the time of the orbit determinations the satellite passed through 15th-order resonance. The variations in inclination and eccentricity have been analysed to obtain six lumped 15th-order geopotential harmonics, with accuracies equivalent to between 0.2 and 3.3 cm in geoid height and four lumped 30th-order geopotential harmonics, with accuracies better than 1 cm in geoid height. The lumped harmonics obtained in this paper have been compared with those from the GEM 10B and 10C models and with those from GRIM3-L1 and the RAPP 1981 models. A comparison has also been made with the lumped harmonics obtained from a new PGS-3337 model published by NASA, and the agreement with this model is very good.