Gravity can be studied in detail in near Earth orbits NEO's using laser-ranged test masses tr... more Gravity can be studied in detail in near Earth orbits NEO's using laser-ranged test masses tracked with few-mm accuracy by ILRS. The two LAGEOS satellites have been used to measure frame dragging (a truly rotational effect predicted by GR) with a 10% error. A new mission and an optimized, second generation satellite, LARES (I. Ciufolini PI), is in preparation to reach an accuracy of 1% or less on frame dragging, to measure some PPN parameters, to test the 1/r2 law in a very weak field and, possibly, to test select models of unified theories (using the perigee). This requires a full thermal analysis of the test mass and an accurate knowledge of the asymmetric thermal thursts due to the radiation emitted by the Sun and Earth. A Space Climatic Facility (SCF) has been built at INFN-LNF (Frascati, Italy) to perform this experimental program on LAGEOS and LARES prototypes. It consists of a 2 m × 1 m cryostat, simulators of the Sun and Earth radiations and a versatile thermometry syste...
Astroparticle, Particle and Space Physics, Detectors and Medical Physics Applications - Proceedings of the 10th Conference, 2008
The Space Climatic Facility (SCF) is an experimental apparatus built in 2006 at the Frascati Nati... more The Space Climatic Facility (SCF) is an experimental apparatus built in 2006 at the Frascati National Laboratory of INFN to study the thermal thrusts acting on the LAGEOS I and II satellites and to perform integrated thermal and optical characterization of retro-reflector (CCR) arrays for laser ranging. The latter include the new LARES satellite, whose main scientific goal is to
Summary By analysing the observations of the orbits of the laser-ranged satellites LAGEOS and LA... more Summary By analysing the observations of the orbits of the laser-ranged satellites LAGEOS and LAGEOS II, using the program GEODYN, we have obtained the first direct measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect, or dragging of inertial frames, and the first direct experimental evidence for the gravitomagnetic field. The accuracy of our measurement is of about 30%.
+390644585301 Abstract-Today the investigation of the dynamical aspects of general relativity and... more +390644585301 Abstract-Today the investigation of the dynamical aspects of general relativity and gravitational interactions are especially important. This is due to recent discoveries in cosmology, and in particular to the recent discovery of dark energy. The most interesting potential explanation of the dark energy oc- curs in string theory, and may require a violation of general relativity. One way of
The LARES space experiment, by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), is based on the launch of a new la... more The LARES space experiment, by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), is based on the launch of a new laser ranged satellite, called LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite), using the new launch vehicle VEGA (Veicolo Europeo di Generazione. Avanzata, provided by ESA). LARES will have an altitude of about 1,450 km, orbital inclination of about 71. 5∘ and nearly zero eccentricity. The
Summary We discuss the possibility of measuring the Lense-Thirring (LT) gravitomagnetic effect o... more Summary We discuss the possibility of measuring the Lense-Thirring (LT) gravitomagnetic effect on a «test-particle», usinga) orbital elements other than the nodal longitude andb) existing or planned earth satellites and in particular laser-ranged satellites such as LAGEOS (hereafter, LAGEOS-I) LAGEOS-II and LAGEOS-III. Our conclusion is that, using the presently available satellites, the only orbital parameter suitable to measure the LT effect is the nodal longitude. Furthermore, existing or planned laser-ranged satellites, such as LAGEOS-I and LAGEOS-II, would not give enough information to measure the gravitomagnetic effect, unless a new satellite, such as LAGEOS-III, Ciufolini (1984), with inclinationsupplementary to that of LAGEOS-I, will be launched. For this purpose, we also discuss the orbital injection accuracy requirements for the LAGEOS-III satellite.
Summary We report some of the Italian results of a joint ASI-NASA study concerning the physics o... more Summary We report some of the Italian results of a joint ASI-NASA study concerning the physics of the LAGEOS III experiment to measure the gravitomagnetic field. In particular we describe some of the results regarding the nodal perturbations due to indirect-radiation pressure and to particle drag effects.
We have analysed LAGEOS II perigee rate and eccentricity vector excitation residuals over a perio... more We have analysed LAGEOS II perigee rate and eccentricity vector excitation residuals over a period of about 7.8 years, adjusting and computing the satellite orbit with the full set of dynamical models included in the GEODYN II software code. The long-term behaviour of these orbital residuals appears to be characterised by several distinct frequencies which are a clear signature of
Gravity can be studied in detail in near Earth orbits NEO's using laser-ranged test masses tr... more Gravity can be studied in detail in near Earth orbits NEO's using laser-ranged test masses tracked with few-mm accuracy by ILRS. The two LAGEOS satellites have been used to measure frame dragging (a truly rotational effect predicted by GR) with a 10% error. A new mission and an optimized, second generation satellite, LARES (I. Ciufolini PI), is in preparation to reach an accuracy of 1% or less on frame dragging, to measure some PPN parameters, to test the 1/r2 law in a very weak field and, possibly, to test select models of unified theories (using the perigee). This requires a full thermal analysis of the test mass and an accurate knowledge of the asymmetric thermal thursts due to the radiation emitted by the Sun and Earth. A Space Climatic Facility (SCF) has been built at INFN-LNF (Frascati, Italy) to perform this experimental program on LAGEOS and LARES prototypes. It consists of a 2 m × 1 m cryostat, simulators of the Sun and Earth radiations and a versatile thermometry syste...
Astroparticle, Particle and Space Physics, Detectors and Medical Physics Applications - Proceedings of the 10th Conference, 2008
The Space Climatic Facility (SCF) is an experimental apparatus built in 2006 at the Frascati Nati... more The Space Climatic Facility (SCF) is an experimental apparatus built in 2006 at the Frascati National Laboratory of INFN to study the thermal thrusts acting on the LAGEOS I and II satellites and to perform integrated thermal and optical characterization of retro-reflector (CCR) arrays for laser ranging. The latter include the new LARES satellite, whose main scientific goal is to
Summary By analysing the observations of the orbits of the laser-ranged satellites LAGEOS and LA... more Summary By analysing the observations of the orbits of the laser-ranged satellites LAGEOS and LAGEOS II, using the program GEODYN, we have obtained the first direct measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect, or dragging of inertial frames, and the first direct experimental evidence for the gravitomagnetic field. The accuracy of our measurement is of about 30%.
+390644585301 Abstract-Today the investigation of the dynamical aspects of general relativity and... more +390644585301 Abstract-Today the investigation of the dynamical aspects of general relativity and gravitational interactions are especially important. This is due to recent discoveries in cosmology, and in particular to the recent discovery of dark energy. The most interesting potential explanation of the dark energy oc- curs in string theory, and may require a violation of general relativity. One way of
The LARES space experiment, by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), is based on the launch of a new la... more The LARES space experiment, by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), is based on the launch of a new laser ranged satellite, called LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite), using the new launch vehicle VEGA (Veicolo Europeo di Generazione. Avanzata, provided by ESA). LARES will have an altitude of about 1,450 km, orbital inclination of about 71. 5∘ and nearly zero eccentricity. The
Summary We discuss the possibility of measuring the Lense-Thirring (LT) gravitomagnetic effect o... more Summary We discuss the possibility of measuring the Lense-Thirring (LT) gravitomagnetic effect on a «test-particle», usinga) orbital elements other than the nodal longitude andb) existing or planned earth satellites and in particular laser-ranged satellites such as LAGEOS (hereafter, LAGEOS-I) LAGEOS-II and LAGEOS-III. Our conclusion is that, using the presently available satellites, the only orbital parameter suitable to measure the LT effect is the nodal longitude. Furthermore, existing or planned laser-ranged satellites, such as LAGEOS-I and LAGEOS-II, would not give enough information to measure the gravitomagnetic effect, unless a new satellite, such as LAGEOS-III, Ciufolini (1984), with inclinationsupplementary to that of LAGEOS-I, will be launched. For this purpose, we also discuss the orbital injection accuracy requirements for the LAGEOS-III satellite.
Summary We report some of the Italian results of a joint ASI-NASA study concerning the physics o... more Summary We report some of the Italian results of a joint ASI-NASA study concerning the physics of the LAGEOS III experiment to measure the gravitomagnetic field. In particular we describe some of the results regarding the nodal perturbations due to indirect-radiation pressure and to particle drag effects.
We have analysed LAGEOS II perigee rate and eccentricity vector excitation residuals over a perio... more We have analysed LAGEOS II perigee rate and eccentricity vector excitation residuals over a period of about 7.8 years, adjusting and computing the satellite orbit with the full set of dynamical models included in the GEODYN II software code. The long-term behaviour of these orbital residuals appears to be characterised by several distinct frequencies which are a clear signature of
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