John L. Junkins
Published: 1977
Total Pages: 214
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As alternatives to lengthy globally valid series representations of the geopotential, piecewise modeling for the gravity field is investigated. A degree 23 spherical harmonic representation is replaced by 1500 local gravity functions within the spherical shell from 1 to 1.2 earth radii. Worst case acceleration errors enter in the 7th significant digit, computational speed is improved by an order of magnitude. (Author).