https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2018-12174-y
Regular Article
A new laser-ranged satellite for General Relativity and space geodesy: IV. Thermal drag and the LARES 2 space experiment
1
Dip. Ingegneria dell’Innovazione, Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy
2
Centro Fermi, Rome, Italy
3
Theory Group, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA
4
Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale, Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, Italy
5
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
6
Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET) University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA
7
Center for Space Research, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA
* e-mail: ignazio.ciufolini@gmail.com
Received:
22
April
2018
Accepted:
31
July
2018
Published online:
23
August
2018
In three previous papers we presented the LARES 2 space experiment aimed at a very accurate test of frame-dragging and at other tests of fundamental physics and measurements of space geodesy and geodynamics. We presented the error sources in the LARES 2 experiment, its error budget, Monte Carlo simulations and covariance analyses confirming an accuracy of a few parts per thousand in the test of frame-dragging, and we treated the error due to the uncertainty in the de Sitter effect, a relativistic orbital perturbation. Here we discuss the impact in the error budget of the LARES 2 frame-dragging experiment of the orbital perturbation due to thermal drag or thermal thrust. We show that the thermal drag induces an uncertainty of about one part per thousand in the LARES 2 frame-dragging test, consistent with the error estimates in our previous papers.
© Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature, 2018
