Calibration and evaluation of Skylab altimetry for geodetic determination of the geoid

The author has identified the following significant results. An analytical method for geodetic computation of the marine geoid (the geoid in the oceans) from satellite altimetry is developed and validated with data from Skylab mission SL-2. The criteria for achieving accurate scale and orientation of satellite altimetry geoid are shown to require marine geodetic control to offset systematic errors in the orbit (orientation is completely orbit dependent) and the altimeter data.