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Current observations of the universe have strengthened the interest to further test General Relativity and other theories of fundamental physics. After an introduction to the phenomenon of frame-dragging predicted by Einsteinʼs theory of General Relativity, with fundamental astrophysical applications to rotating black holes, we describe the past measurements of frame-dragging obtained by the LAGEOS...
LARES, together with other laser ranged satellites and other space geodesy techniques are used by the scientific community to monitor global environmental changes including melting of the polar ice caps. The accuracy reached today with these sophisticated techniques is very high since they allow to monitor for instance the Earth rotation axis shifts with accuracies of a few millimeters or better....
Since its launch in February 2012, the LAser RElativity Satellite (LARES) of the Italian Space Agency experienced four close approaches with space debris. LARES orbits at an altitude of 1450 km, in a region where the density of space debris has a peak. However, the probability of an impact with a debris during the operational life of the satellite was reasonably low. The analysis of the close approaches...
LARES is an Italian Space Agency mission designed to test General Relativity in the weak field of Earth. In particular, the satellite will be able to measure frame-dragging with an accuracy of about 1%. The difficulty of the measurement is mainly due to the perturbations acting on the satellite and the relatively tiny size of the effect, amounting to about 118 milliarcseconds/year. LARES will also...
LARES is an Italian Space Agency satellite specifically designed, built and launched to test general relativity. It is a passive satellite covered with Cube Corner Reflectors that reflect laser pulses from tracking stations, thus allowing accurate measurement of the distance. That in turn enables accurate orbit reconstruction that is a key ingredient to allow the measurement of the tiny Lense-Thirring...
Here we show the first results of the satellite LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite) of the Italian Space Agency, launched in February 2012 by the European Space Agency. Thanks to its special design, LARES minimizes the non-gravitational perturbations and the thermal forces better than any other artificial satellite.
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