Measurement of dragging of inertial frames and gravitomagnetic field using laser-ranged satellites

Ciufolini, Ignazio; Lucchesi, David M.; Vespe, F.; Mandiello, Alfonso Giovanni

doi:10.1007/bf02731140

Cited by 70 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This strategy was implemented in the subsequent tests [101][102][103][104]. As a measure of the realistic uncertainty in the even zonals, Ciufolini [100,102,103] took the absolute value of the differences |∆J | = J A − J B = 2 4 among the estimated coefficients of two different Earth gravity models A and B whose intrinsic accuracies were quite different; for example, the models JGM3 [67] and GEMT-3S [105] were used in [101][102][103], where the estimated errors σ J = 2 4 of the individual coefficients of JGM3 [67] were more accurate than those of GEMT-3S [105] by about one order of magnitude. More precisely, Ciufolini [100] wrote: "Now, there is a basic problem to evaluate if these estimated errors in the spherical harmonic coefficients of the Earth's gravity field solution are consistent with the true errors in the value of these coefficients.…”

Section: The Tests With the Perigee Of Lageos-2mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The numerical value of 1 was obtained by the known standard formula [54,101] for the J 2 node precession, and it allows, in principle, to exactly remove the bias due to the Earth's quadrupole. Moreover, Iorio [118][119][120][121] quantitatively calculated the magnitude of the systematic error due to the terrestrial multipoles with some of the recently released CHAMP/GRACE models and Eq.…”

Section: Eliminating the Perigee Of Lageos-2 With The Grace Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The differencing method to assess the realistic errors in the Earth's gravity field multipoles is widely used in the space geodesists community, irrespectively of their relative accuracy: see the discussion in [28] and the recent [55]. Ciufolini himself [101][102][103] used it in the earlier tests including the perigee of Lageos-2; see Section 3.1. Nonetheless, he [16] now changed his mind by criticizing the choice of Iorio [138] with arguments which can be judged incorrect.…”

Section: It Would Roughly Correspond To ≈ 2 − 3 MM In Determining Thementioning

confidence: 99%

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History of the attempts to measure orbital frame-dragging with artificial satellites

Renzetti¹

2013

Open Physics

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Section: The Tests With the Perigee Of Lageos-2mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Eliminating the Perigee Of Lageos-2 With The Grace Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: It Would Roughly Correspond To ≈ 2 − 3 MM In Determining Thementioning

confidence: 99%

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History of the attempts to measure orbital frame-dragging with artificial satellites

Renzetti¹

2013

Open Physics

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“…In order to perform reliable measurements in gravitational physics by means of the tracking of Earth's satellites [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] , as well as for space geodesy and geophysics applications [26][27][28][29][30][31][32] , a POD for the orbit of the considered satellites represents an essential prerequisite. In this context, the preliminary analyses we performed include a preparatory data reduction for the satellites orbit with a tailored setup for the models implemented in the software.…”

Section: Precise Orbit Determinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing gravitation with satellite laser ranging and the LARASE experiment

Lucchesi¹,

Anselmo²,

Bassan³

et al. 2017

The Fourteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting

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The International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS) provides range measurements of passive satellites around the Earth through the powerful Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) technique. These very precise measurements of the distance between an on-ground laser station and a satellite equipped with cube corner retro-reflectors (CCRs) make possible precise tests and measurements in fundamental physics and, in particular, in gravitational physics. The LAGEOS (NASA 1976) and LAGEOS II (NASA/ASI 1992) satellites are outstanding examples of very good test particles because of their very low area-to-mass ratio as well as the high quality of their tracking data and, consequently, of the precise orbit determination (POD) we can obtain after a refined modeling of their orbit. The aim of our research program LARASE (LAser RAnged Satellites Experiment) is to go a step further in testing gravitation in the field of Earth by means of the joint analysis of the orbits of the two LAGEOS satellites together with that of the most recently launched LARES (ASI, 2012) satellite. Therefore, our work falls in the so-called weak field and slow motion (WFSM) limit of Einstein's general relativity (GR) where, in terms of Newtonian physics, relativistic effects appear as two new fields to be added to the classical gravitational field: the gravitoelectric and the gravitomagnetic fields. A fundamental ingredient to reach such a goal is to provide high-quality updated models for the perturbing non-gravitational perturbations (NGP) acting on the surface of these satellites. In fact, regardless of their minimization thanks to a smaller value for the area-to-mass ratio, the subtle and complex to model perturbing effects of the NGP play a crucial role in the POD of the considered satellites, especially in the case of the thermal thrust effects. A large amount of SLR data of LAGEOS and LAGEOS II has been worked out using a set of dedicated models for the satellite dynamics and the related post-fit residuals have been analyzed. A parallel work was performed with LARES, although at a preliminary stage. Our recent work on the orbit modeling and on the data analysis of the orbit of such satellites is presented and discussed.

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“…[25]. Tests have been effectively performed using the LAGEOS and LAGEOS II satellites [26], according to a strategy involving a suitable combination of the nodes of both satellites and the perigee ω of LAGEOS II [27]. This was done to reduce the impact of the most relevant source of systematic bias, viz.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservative evaluation of the uncertainty in the LAGEOS-LAGEOS II Lense-Thirring test

Iorio

2009

Open Physics

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Abstract:We deal with the test of the general relativistic gravitomagnetic Lense-Thirring effect currently being conducted in the Earth's gravitational field with the combined nodes Ω of the laser-ranged geodetic satellites LAGEOS and LAGEOS II. One of the most important sources of systematic uncertainty on the orbits of the LAGEOS satellites, with respect to the Lense-Thirring signature, is the bias due to the even zonal harmonic coefficients J of the multipolar expansion of the Earth's geopotential which account for the departures from sphericity of the terrestrial gravitational potential induced by the centrifugal effects of its diurnal rotation. The issue addressed here is: are the so far published evaluations of such a systematic error reliable and realistic? The answer is negative. Indeed, if the difference ∆J among the even zonals estimated in different global solutions (EIGEN-GRACE02S, EIGEN-CG03C, GGM02S, GGM03S, ITG-Grace02, ITG-Grace03s, JEM01-RL03B, EGM2008, AIUB-GRACE01S) is assumed for the uncertainties δJ instead of using their more-or-less calibrated covariances σ J , it turns out that the systematic error δµ in the Lense-Thirring measurement is about 3 to 4 times larger than in the evaluations so far published based on the use of the covariances of one model at a time separately, amounting up to 37% for the pair EIGEN-GRACE02S/ITGGrace03s. The comparison among the other recent GRACE-based models yields bias as large as about 25−30%. The major discrepancies still occur for J 4 J 6 and J 8 , which are just to which the zonals the combined LAGEOS/LAGOES II nodes are most sensitive. PACS

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Measurement of dragging of inertial frames and gravitomagnetic field using laser-ranged satellites

Cited by 70 publications

References 8 publications

History of the attempts to measure orbital frame-dragging with artificial satellites

History of the attempts to measure orbital frame-dragging with artificial satellites

Testing gravitation with satellite laser ranging and the LARASE experiment

Conservative evaluation of the uncertainty in the LAGEOS-LAGEOS II Lense-Thirring test

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