Lense-Thirring Precession Determination From Laser Ranging to Artificial Satellites

Constraints from orbital motions around the Earth of the environmental fifth-force hypothesis for the OPERA superluminal neutrino phenomenology

“…It is well known that the perigees of the LAGEOS-type satellites are particularly sensitive to a host of non-gravitational perturbations which are, thus, a major limiting factor in constraining α. As pointed out by Ries et al [59] in the context of the re-analysis of the earlier tests of the general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect with the LAGEOS and LAGEOS II satellites [60], the realistic accuracy in determining the secular perigee precession of LAGEOS II is larger than the gravitomagnetic effect itself mainly because of the non-gravitational perturbations affecting such an orbital element. From Table 9.7 of [61] it is possible to infer an uncertainty of about 125 milliarcseconds per year (mas yr −1 in the following).…”

Towards a One Percent Measurement of Frame Dragging by Spin with Satellite Laser Ranging to LAGEOS, LAGEOS 2 and LARES and GRACE Gravity Models

“…As we have pointed out in the previous section, the perigee of an Earth satellite such as LAGEOS 2 is affected by a number of perturbations whose impact in the final error budget is not easily assessed and this was one of the two main points of concern of Ries et al (2003a). The other point of concern was some favorable correlation of the errors of the Earth's spherical harmonics for the EGM96 model that might lead to some underestimated error budget.…”

“…A detailed study of the various possibilities to measure the Lense-Thirring effect using LAGEOS and other laser-ranged satellites was presented in Peterson (1997). The use of GRACE-derived gravitational models, when available, to measure the Lense-Thirring effect with accuracy of a few percent was published by Ries et al (2003aRies et al ( , 2003b and Pavlis (2000). In the proceedings of the 1998 William Fairbank conference and of the 13th Int.…”

“…In the proceedings of the 1998 William Fairbank conference and of the 13th Int. Laser Ranging Workshop, Ries et al (2003a) concluded that, in the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect using the GRACE gravity models and the LAGEOS and LAGEOS 2 satellites, a more current…”

“…Overcoming the problem (Ries et al 2003a(Ries et al , 2003b of the Earth's gravity field uncertainties came in March 2002 when NASA's two identical GRACE (Reigber et al 2002;Tapley 2002) spacecraft (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) were launched in a polar orbit at an altitude of approximately 450 km and at a mutual distance of about 200-250 km. The spacecraft range to each other via a radar and they are tracked by the GPS satellites.…”