Abstract
For determination of Earth orientation parameters with a satellite laser, ranging their motion should be modeled with the precision of the ranging (3–5 mm). For low Earth orbits (1000 km or lower), the procedure needs atmospheric deceleration force. Precise values of the atmosphere density are the main difficulty there. There are a lot of atmosphere density models for heights to 1500 km. This article deals with NRL-MSISE-00, DTM-2012, and JB2008 empirical atmosphere density models, which are applicable for this task. The quantitative analysis of the models’ precision is given, and some recommendations for their use are formulated.