Abstract
Planetary and satellite theories have been historically and are presently intimately related to the available computing capabilities, the accuracy of observational data, and the requirements of the astronomical community. Thus, the development of computers made it possible to replace planetary and lunar general theories with numerical integrations, or special perturbation methods. In turn, the availability of inexpensive small computers and high-speed computers with inexpensive memory stimulated the requirement to change from numerical integration back to general theories, or representative ephemerides, where the ephemerides could be calculated for a given date rather than using a table look-up process. In parallel with this progression, the observational accuracy has improved such that general theories cannot presently achieve the accuracy of the observations, and, in turn, it appears that in some cases the models and methods of numerical integration also need to be improved for the accuracies of the observations.
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