LARES succesfully launched in orbit: satellite and mission description

Abstract

On February 13th 2012, the LARES satellite of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) was launched into orbit with the qualification flight of the new VEGA launcher of the European Space Agency (ESA). The payload was released very accurately in the nominal orbit. The name LARES means LAser RElativity Satellite and summarises the objective of the mission and some characteristics of the satellite. It is, in fact, a mission designed to test Einstein's General Relativity Theory (specifically 'frame dragging' and Lense-Thirring effect). The satellite is passive and covered with optical retroreflectors that send back laser pulses to the emitting ground station. This allows accurate positioning of the satellite, which is important for measuring the very small deviations from Galilei-Newton's laws. In 2008, ASI selected the prime industrial contractor for the LARES system with a heavy involvement of the universities in all phases of the programme, from the design to the construction and testing of the satellite and separation system. The data exploitation phase started immediately after the launch under a new contract between ASI and those universities. Tracking of the satellite is provided by the International Laser Ranging Service. Due to its particular design, LARES is the orbiting object with the highest known mean density in the solar system. In this paper, it is shown that this peculiarity makes it the best proof particle ever manufactured. Design aspects, mission objectives and preliminary data analysis will be also presented.

To appear in Acta Astronautica 2013

References in corpus (2)

• Testing General Relativity and gravitational physics using the LARES satellite
• Will the recently approved LARES mission be able to measure the Lense-Thirring effect at 1%?

Cited by in corpus (12)

• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• Fundamental Physics and General Relativity with the LARES and LAGEOS satellites
• Sagnac Effect, Ring Lasers and Terrestrial Tests of Gravity
• A flyby anomaly for Juno? Not from standard physics
• The LArase Satellites Spin mOdel Solutions (LASSOS): a comprehensive model for the spin evolution of the LAGEOS and LARES satellites
• The impact of the orbital decay of the LAGEOS satellites on the frame-dragging tests
• Modelling LARES temperature distribution and thermal drag
• A Machian Approach to General Relativity
• LARES Satellite Thermal Forces and a Test of General Relativity
• Estimation of the Perturbing Accelerations Induced on the LARES Satellite by Neutral Atmosphere Drag
• Time travel, Clock Puzzles and Their Experimental Tests
• Commentary to "LARES successfully launched in orbit: Satellite and mission description" by A. Paolozzi and I. Ciufolini