Development of the Gravity Probe B flight mission

J. P. Turneaure, C. W.F. Everitt, B. W. Parkinson, D. Bardas, S. Buchman, D. B. DeBra, H. Dougherty, D. Gill, J. Grammer, G. B. Green, G. M. Gutt, D. H. Gwo, M. Heifetz, N. J. Kasdin, G. M. Keiser, J. A. Lipa, J. M. Lockhart, J. C. Mester, Barry Muhlfelder, R. ParmleyA. S. Silbergleit, M. T. Sullivan, M. A. Taber, R. A. Van Patten, R. Vassar, S. Wang, Y. M. Xiao, P. Zhou

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14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Gravity Probe B is an experiment to measure the geodetic and frame-dragging precessions, relative to the "fixed" stars", of a gyroscope placed in a 650 km altitude polar orbit about the earth. For Einstein's general relativity, the precessions are calculated to be 6.6 arcsec/yr for the geodetic precession and 0.042 arcsec/yr for the frame-dragging precession. The goal of the experiment is to measure these precessions to better than 0.01% and 1%, respectively. This paper gives an overview of the experiment and a discussion of the flight hardware development and its status. This paper also includes an estimate of the geodetic and frame-dragging errors expected for the experiment.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1387-1396
Number of pages10
JournalAdvances in Space Research
Volume32
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - 2003

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Geophysics
  • Atmospheric Science
  • Space and Planetary Science
  • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

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