Test of general relativity during the 
<i>BepiColombo</i>
 interplanetary cruise to Mercury

Serra, Daniele; Pierri, Vincenzo Di; Schettino, Giulia; Tommei, Giacomo

doi:10.1103/physrevd.98.064059

Cited by 14 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…As a final remark, we outline an approach to extend GRAPE for practical mission planning and compatibility with NASA's SPICE kernels (Acton 1997). This will be formally addressed in a future manuscript and we expect the important results of the Cassini-Huygens (Bertotti et al 2003) and BepiColumbo (Serra et al 2018;Iess et al 2021) radioscience experiments to serve as important verification tests for future versions of GRAPE. When complete, GRAPE will utilise the PN IAU operational-ready spacetime metrics for both geocentric and barycentric studies and will calculate important light-time observables ) associated with interplanetary probes.…”

Section: Grape: First Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

An application of symplectic integration for general relativistic planetary orbitography subject to non-gravitational forces

O’Leary¹,

Barriot

2021

Celest Mech Dyn Astr

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Spacecraft propagation tools describe the motion of near-Earth objects and interplanetary probes using Newton’s theory of gravity supplemented with the approximate general relativistic n-body Einstein–Infeld–Hoffmann equations of motion. With respect to the general theory of relativity and the long-standing recommendations of the International Astronomical Union for astrometry, celestial mechanics and metrology, we believe modern orbitography software is now reaching its limits in terms of complexity. In this paper, we present the first results of a prototype software titled General Relativistic Accelerometer-based Propagation Environment (GRAPE). We describe the motion of interplanetary probes and spacecraft using extended general relativistic equations of motion which account for non-gravitational forces using end-user supplied accelerometer data or approximate dynamical models. We exploit the unique general relativistic quadratic invariant associated with the orthogonality between four-velocity and acceleration and simulate the perturbed orbits for Molniya, Parker Solar Probe and Mercury Planetary Orbiter-like test particles subject to a radiation-like four-force. The accuracy of the numerical procedure is maintained using a 5-stage, $$10^\mathrm{th}$$ 10 th -order structure-preserving Gauss collocation symplectic integration scheme. GRAPE preserves the norm of the tangent vector to the test particle worldline at the order of $$10^{-32}$$ 10 - 32 .

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Section: Grape: First Results and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

An application of symplectic integration for general relativistic planetary orbitography subject to non-gravitational forces

O’Leary¹,

Barriot

2021

Celest Mech Dyn Astr

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“…3.1, we set an apriori constraint on each solve-for parameter, given by the present knowledge of the parameter. In the case of the PN parameter γ, we set a more tight constraint 7 , as the result of a set of simulations performed by the authors on the Superior Conjunction Experiment (SCE), which will be held during the cruise phase of BepiColombo from 2021 to 2024 (see Serra et al 2018). Moreover, we adopt the following important assumption: we link all the PN parameters by the Nordtvedt equation (Nordtvedt, 1970)…”

Section: Simulation Setup and Nominal Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, several studies and simulations of the radio-science experiments of BepiColombo and Juno have been performed during the years. Starting from theoretic papers concerning the setup of the BepiColombo experiments (Milani et al, 2002), high-quality formulation of computed data (Tommei et al, 2010) and innovative multi-arc strategy (Alessi et al, 2012), more recently, the CMG of Pisa has been able to perform full simulations of the BepiColombo gravity (Cicalò et al, 2016), relativity (Schettino et al, 2018) and superior-conjunction (Serra et al, 2018) experiments, and Juno gravity experiment (Serra et al, 2016). Orbit14 was used also for preliminary studies of the ESA JUICE mission (Grasset et al, 2013), with a focus on spacecraft's orbit and the dynamics of the Galilean satellites (Dirkx et al, 2017;Lari and Milani, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Orbit determination methods for interplanetary missions: development and use of the Orbit14 software

Lari,

Schettino,

Serra

et al. 2021

Preprint

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In the last years, a new generation of interplanetary space missions have been designed for the exploration of the solar system. At the same time, radio-science instrumentation has reached an unprecedented level of accuracy, leading to a significant improvement of our knowledge of celestial bodies. Along with this hardware upgrade, software products for interplanetary missions have been greatly refined. In this context, we introduce Orbit14, a precise orbit determination software developed at the University of Pisa for processing the radio-science data of the BepiColombo and Juno missions. Along the years, many tools have been implemented into the software and Orbit14 capitalized the experience coming from simulations and treatment of real data. In this paper, we present a review of orbit determination methods developed at the University of Pisa for radio-science experiments of interplanetary missions. We describe the basic theory of the process of parameters estimation and refined methods necessary to have full control on experiments involving spacecraft orbiting millions of kilometers far from the Earth. Our aim is to give both an extensive description of the treatment of radio-science experiments and step-to-step instructions for those who are approaching the field of orbit determination in the context of space missions. We show also the work conducted on the Juno and BepiColombo missions by means of the Or-bit14 software. In particular, we summarize the recent results obtained with the gravity experiment of Juno and the simulations performed so far for the gravimetry-rotation and relativity experiments of BepiColombo.

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“…For each relativity parameter that we are interested in, we set an apriori constraint given by the present knowledge of the parameter, as listed in Table 1. We point out that the adopted apriori on γ is a conservative estimate that is derived by a full set of simulations, carried out by the authors in [33], of the Superior Conjunction Experiment (SCE), planned during the cruise phase of BepiColombo 7 . Concerning the torsion parameters, they have not been experimentally estimated so far.…”

Section: Simulation Scenario and Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Test of Gravitational Theories Including Torsion with the BepiColombo Radio Science Experiment

et al. 2020

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Within the framework of the relativity experiment of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury, which was launched at the end of 2018, we describe how a test of alternative theories of gravity, including torsion can be set up. Following March et al. (2011), the effects of a non-vanishing spacetime torsion have been parameterized by three torsion parameters, t1, t2, and t3. These parameters can be estimated within a global least squares fit, together with a number of parameters of interest, such as post-Newtonian parameters γ and β, and the orbits of Mercury and the Earth. The simulations have been performed by means of the ORBIT14 orbit determination software, which was developed by the Celestial Mechanics Group of the University of Pisa for the analysis of the BepiColombo radio science experiment. We claim that the torsion parameters can be determined by means of the relativity experiment of BepiColombo at the level of some parts in 10−4, which is a significant result for constraining gravitational theories that allow spacetime torsion.

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Test of general relativity during the BepiColombo interplanetary cruise to Mercury

Cited by 14 publications

References 28 publications

An application of symplectic integration for general relativistic planetary orbitography subject to non-gravitational forces

An application of symplectic integration for general relativistic planetary orbitography subject to non-gravitational forces

Orbit determination methods for interplanetary missions: development and use of the Orbit14 software

A Test of Gravitational Theories Including Torsion with the BepiColombo Radio Science Experiment

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