A critical approach to the concept of a polar, low-altitude LARES satellite

Abstract

According to very recent developments of the LARES mission, which would be devoted to the measurement of the general relativistic Lense--Thirring effect in the gravitational field of the Earth with Satellite Laser Ranging, it seems that the LARES satellite might be finally launched in a polar, low--altitude orbit by means of a relatively low--cost rocket. The observable would be the node only. In this letter we critically analyze this scenario.

LaTex2e, 11 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravity

References in corpus (1)

• On a new observable for measuring the Lense-Thirring effect with Satellite Laser Ranging

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Phenomenology of the Lense-Thirring effect in the Solar System
• Precise relativistic orbits in Kerr and Kerr-(anti) de Sitter spacetimes
• An Assessment of the Systematic Uncertainty in Present and Future Tests of the Lense-Thirring Effect with Satellite Laser Ranging
• The impact of the new Earth gravity models on the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect with a new satellite
• Will the recently approved LARES mission be able to measure the Lense-Thirring effect at 1%?
• An assessment of the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect in the Earth gravity field, in reply to: ``On the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect using the nodes of the LAGEOS satellites, in reply to ``On the reliability of the so far performed tests for measuring the Lense-Thirring effect with the LAGEOS satellites'' by L. Iorio,'' by I. Ciufolini and E. Pavlis
• Conservative evaluation of the uncertainty in the LAGEOS-LAGEOS II Lense-Thirring test
• A comment on the paper "On the orbit of the LARES satellite", by I. Ciufolini
• A reassessment of the systematic gravitational error in the LARES mission
• Perspectives in measuring the PPN parameters beta and gamma in the Earth's gravitational fields with the CHAMP/GRACE models
• On the impossibility of using the longitude of the ascending node of GP-B for measuring the Lense-Thirring effect
• On the impossibility of using certain existing spacecraft for the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect in the terrestrial gravitational field