Thermal Analysis of the Pioneer Anomaly: A method to estimate radiative momentum transfer

Abstract

We present a methodology based on point-like Lambertian sources that enables one to perform a reliable and comprehensive estimate of the overall thermally induced acceleration of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. We show, by developing a sensitivity analysis of the several parameters of the model, that one may achieve a valuable insight on the possible thermal origin of the so-called Pioneer anomaly.

12 pages, 8 figures, 5 tables

References in corpus (2)

• Extra force in $f(R)$ modified theories of gravity
• A mission to test the Pioneer anomaly: estimating the main systematic effects