LARES 2 messo in orbita dal VEGA C

Ten years after the launch of LARES 1, the Italian and the European Space Agencies, with Avio, replicated on 13 July 2022 a very precise orbital injection of the LARES 2 satellite by the VEGA C launcher. The objective of the two missions is to measure very accurately frame-dragging of general relativity, due to Earth rotation. That is obtained by combining the data of the LARES satellites with the ones of the LAGEOS satellites, launched decades earlier, by designing the two satellites as the densest orbiting objects in the solar system, and by using the accurate determination of the Earth gravitational field provided by the GRACE and GRACE Follow-On missions. With the LARES mission the effect has been measured with an accuracy approaching 1%. With LARES 2 we will obtain an improvement by one order of magnitude or better.