MICROSCOPE mission analysis, requirements and expected performance

Abstract

The MICROSCOPE mission aimed to test the Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP) to a precision of $10^{-15}$. The WEP states that two bodies fall at the same rate on a gravitational field independently of their mass or composition. In MICROSCOPE, two masses of different compositions (titanium and platinum alloys) are placed on a quasi-circular trajectory around the Earth. They are the test-masses of a double accelerometer. The measurement of their accelerations is used to extract a potential WEP violation that would occur at a frequency defined by the motion and attitude of the satellite around the Earth. This paper details the major drivers of the mission leading to the specification of the major subsystems (satellite, ground segment, instrument, orbit...). Building upon the measurement equation, we derive the objective of the test in statistical and systematic error allocation and provide the mission's expected error budget.

arXiv commentReferences updated

References in corpus (9)

• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• The MICROSCOPE mission: first results of a space test of the Equivalence Principle
• Space test of the Equivalence Principle: first results of the MICROSCOPE mission
• Result of the MICROSCOPE Weak Equivalence Principle test
• MICROSCOPE instrument in-flight characterization
• Determination of the Equivalence Principle violation signal for the MICROSCOPE space mission: optimization of the signal processing
• MICROSCOPE Mission scenario, ground segment and data processing
• MICROSCOPE mission: Data analysis principle
• MICROSCOPE: systematic errors

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Result of the MICROSCOPE Weak Equivalence Principle test
• MICROSCOPE instrument in-flight characterization
• MICROSCOPE's constraint on a short-range fifth force
• MICROSCOPE Mission scenario, ground segment and data processing
• MICROSCOPE mission: Data analysis principle
• MICROSCOPE: systematic errors
• Quantum Physics in Space