Geopotential resonance in a Landsat orbit

A Landsat 1 resonance analysis was conducted on the basis of almost continuous range-rate observations provided by the S-Band station at Greenbelt, MD for a twenty-four day period in September 1976. Constraints on the resonance effects of Landsat 1, determined directly from radar tracking data could be summarized in a number of equations for fully normalized geopotential coefficients. The coefficient values for the dominant resonance terms can be directly determined through the estimation scheme, as the resonance constraints are implicit in the spherical harmonic representation chosen for the geopotential. The degree of the constraint equation series may be arbitrarily increased with analytical expressions for the along-track orbital component in terms of Keplerian elements.