Tesseral harmonics of the geopotential and corrections to station coordinates

A total of 15,191 precisely reduced Baker-Nunn camera observations of 10 artificial satellites were analyzed to obtain new least-squares estimates for the coefficients of tesseral and sectorial harmonics of the geopotential and for the individual corrections to the coordinates of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's 12 tracking stations. Our IBM 7094 computer program as used in this analysis is described in some detail, and several solutions of varying complexity are offered. The method seems to yield estimates of geophysical significance for harmonics up to the sixth degree. The results concerning the camera sites agree reasonably well with those arrived at by the geometrical method of simultaneous observations in cases when the latter are available.