Orbit determination is a branch of celestial mechanics that has grown and matured since the spectacular entry of Gauss into dynamical astronomy over a century ago. Today there are many variations and techniques to the orbit determination problem, some new, some are rediscovered deviations of older classical orbit determinations scheme. This book attempts to collect some of the more popular methods employed in the computation of orbit. In short, the book provides instruction and compendium of orbit determination techniques from an engineering point of view.
The author presents each method as its own entity, requiring minimum background reading to utilize a desired orbit computation technique. The notation is kept as close to the classical as possible. Problem areas included at the end of each chapter to further illustrate the material. The reader should have a firm understanding of the differential and integral calculus, as well as matrix multiplication and inversion techniques.
