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Artificial Satellites as Celestial Bodies, or the Introduction of ‘Experimental Celestial Mechanics’

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Abstract

It would be vain to list all the extra-terrestrial or orbital devices launched since October 4, 1957, when the first Soviet Sputnik was launched. Tables I and II give the major launchings of astronomical interest since then, while Figure 1 shows the progress accomplished in terms of the number of shots and their efficiency. We shall limit the technical details to those given in these tables and this figure. For the following, let us suppose that the satellite has been launched; it has become an astronomical object. We can study it from terrestrial observatories, and radiotelescopes, theodolites, wide-angle cameras, etc., can follow its trajectory accurately. If the satellite emits no signals, or if it emits only a continuous signal at a well-defined frequency, it gives us no direct information on the medium in which it travels (geophysical medium: upper atmosphere; or astronomical medium: radiation field coming from all points of the universe, corpuscles of solar or galactic origin, interplanetary dust and meteoroids).

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