Celestial Mechanics

Extract

This report is organized according to twelve subjects of interest in modern celestial mechanics. Emphasis is placed on the results of an exhaustive literature search in which assistance was received from several members of Commission 7. The impetus on celestial mechanics by space projects, by new observational techniques and by the use of high speed electronic computers continued to be of considerable importance. The fact that celestial mechanics became an experimental science is still too recent to be fully evaluated. The high accuracy of radar and laser observations, the new analytical and numerical techniques, the recent sophisticated statistical orbit determination methods and many other results achieved during the past three years suggest that celestial mechanics is an exploding field of science in which new and exciting results emerge. Celestial mechanics is influencing other fields of scientific endeavor and is intimately connected and embedded in almost all areas of modern astronomy and space research.