Lower thermospheric density structure derived from late decay phases of satellite orbits

In order to obtain new insight into the detailed structure of the lower thermosphere the long-established method of drag analysis again proves to be a powerful tool. For near-circular satellite orbits, in addition to the semi-major axis, the eccentricity and the argument of perigee are strongly influenced by atmospheric drag. With the help of a new computational scheme, which is based on fundamental equations of satellite drag analysis, the amplitudes and phases of global density variations are derived.     

Orthogonalization of a Direction Cosine Matrix by Iterative Techniques

It is shown that the ?first inversion, transposition, and averaging? technique [1] is, assuming convergence, quadratically convergent, since it can be developed very simply by the use of quasilinearization. Only the three-dimensional case is considered; the art of matrix orthogonalization is practiced in more general settings [2] than considered here.