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Venus gravity field - Pioneer Venus Orbiter navigation resultsThe gravity field of Venus has been modeled by a spherical harmonic expansion of the potential to degree and order seven. The estimates of these coeficients were obtained by combining information from 43 short arcs (4 hr) of line-of-sight Doppler data centered at periapsis. The data arcs were distributed in longitude and time over more than two circulations of Venus by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter subperiapsis point which was confined to the band of latitudes from 14 deg N to 17 deg N. Convergence of the solution has been assured by iterating upon the initial estimate. All estimates were performed with zero a priori information on the gravity coefficients. Since the altitude of periapsis for most of the orbits was within the sensible Venusian atmosphere, drag effects on the estimated harmonics have been removed using an exponential atmosphere density model. Estimates of the mass parameter (GM) of Venus using this dataset are also evaluated.
Document ID
19840037456
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Williams, B. G.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Mottinger, N. A.
(California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA, United States)
Panagiotacopulos, N. D.
(California State University Long Beach, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 12, 2013
Publication Date
December 1, 1983
Publication Information
Publication: Icarus
Volume: 56
ISSN: 0019-1035
Subject Category
Astronomy
Accession Number
84A20243
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAS7-100
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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