Testing general relativity with the BepiColombo radio science experiment

Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology

Volumn 66, Issue 8, 2002, Pages

  Milani, Andrea ^a   Vokrouhlický, David ^b   Villani, Daniela ^c   Bonanno, Claudio ^a   Rossi, Alessandro ^d  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PISA   (Italy)

^b CHARLES UNIVERSITY   (Czech Republic)

^c Polo Tecnologico   (Italy)

^d ISTI CNR   (Italy)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACCURACY; ARTICLE; ASTRONOMY; CALIBRATION; DEGRADATION; EXPERIMENT; GRAVITY; LIGHT; MASS; MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS; MOTION; TELECOMMUNICATION;

EID: 4243365786     PISSN: 15507998     EISSN: 15502368     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.66.082001     Document Type: Article

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83. If the range drift flattens out after about one year, then the second year of data would be very useful. But, if this is the case, then the transponder should be turned on during the cruise phase, so that the drift takes place before the beginning of the orbital phase (if the calibration was a constant it could be easily eliminated in the data processing, as we have done for the SCE).
84. The astronomical unit is known today to an accuracy of (Formula presented) which fractionally means (Formula presented) This accuracy is comparable to the (Formula presented) correction from the first line of Eq. (A3) (given the limit (Formula presented) from lunar laser ranging, Ref. 17).