Customer Reviews

Theory of Satellite Geodesy: Applications of Satellites to Geodesy (Dover Earth Science)

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A reprint of this book is long overdue because I know several people who have a crumpled photocopy of the original addition and many others who have searched for a used copy without success. This book is a must read for anyone with more than a passing interest in astrodynamics and especially gravity field modeling.

The book begins with a concise description of the earth's gravity field in terms of potential theory. After a quick refresher on matrices and orbital elements, Kaula proceeds to describe the motion of an artificial satellite. In particular, he provides a detailed analysis of gravity field perturbations upon the evolution of the orbital elements including secular effects and resonance effects. The final chapters are concerned with modeling observations used to track satellites, using the observations to estimate the true motion of the satellite, and estimating geodetic information from the motion of the satellite.

Although first published in 1966, this book remains one of the best volumes available on satellite theory and geodesy. It is still used as a reference and textbook by many if not most experts in the field. However, the work is certainly not perfect. Kaula gives a concise and complete coverage of the subject, but it comes at the cost of loads of equations with little explanatory text. This can make it somewhat difficult to follow. It is certainly not written as a popular guide for the general public. Nevertheless, many astrodynamicists are delighted to have this volume available from the good folks at Dover.

I studied with Bill Kaula from 1964-66 at UCLA and used this text extensively at that time and later while doing research and teaching in satellite geodesy. This thin book presents the derivations and details of analytic methods for calculating satellite orbits, and determining Earth's gravitational field from observations of satellites. Numerical methods are now much more accurate, but "number crunching" does not provide nearly the insights that analytic analyses can do. If you want insight into satellite orbit mechanics, this is the book to read. The first edition contained many typos and other errors which have been corrected in the Dover edition. The book provides an outstanding entry into the field of satellite geodesy. Math and physics at the upper division college level are required.

Bruce C. Douglas