On July 13, 2022, the LAser Relativity Satellite n. 2, LARES 2, lifted off from Kourou (French Guiana) on board of the new European launcher Vega-C. The improved and more powerful version of the Vega, the rocket that in 2012 carried the first LARES satellite, put LARES 2 into an orbit which has supplementary inclination to the orbit of the LAGEOS satellite, launched in 1976 by NASA, and the same semimajor axis. This particular orbit is the main scientific requirement of the mission, because this configuration allows to cancel, in the data analysis,the effect of the classical gravitational perturbations (due to the even zonal harmonics of the Earth’s gravity field) on the drift of the node, and to measure the effect of the relativistic frame-dragging; an improvement of at least an order of magnitude in the accuracy of the measurement of the dragging of the inertial frames done with the first LARES satellite is indeed the main scientific target of the mission. Other relativistic and gravitational measurements and space geodesy and geodinamics determinations will be achieved by LARES 2. LARES 2 has been designed to be an improved target for laser ranging, even at an altitude of 5900 km. The spacecraft adopts some engineering solutions already tested with LARES, along with some novel improvements. In particular, the satellite carries 303 laser retroreflectors, smaller with respect to the ones mounted on LAGEOS and LARES, distributed with an optimized pattern on the spherical surface of LARES 2. This arrangement was expected to improve the ranging accuracy, and indeed the first data from the laser ranging stations that are tracking LARES 2 confirm that it seems to be the best target orbiting the Earth, at the same level or even better than the LAGEOS and LAGEOS 2 satellites, which are considered the benchmarks for this technique. This paper describes the satellite and the preliminary results of laser ranging after its first weeks in space.
LARES 2 is in Orbit: a New Laser Ranging Target for Fundamental Physics and Earth Science / Paris, Claudio; Ciufolini, Ignazio; Paolozzi, Antonio; Pavlis, Erricos C.. - (2022). (Intervento presentato al convegno AGU Fall Meeting 2022 tenutosi a Chicago, USA).
LARES 2 is in Orbit: a New Laser Ranging Target for Fundamental Physics and Earth Science
Claudio Paris
;Ignazio Ciufolini;Antonio Paolozzi;
2022
Abstract
On July 13, 2022, the LAser Relativity Satellite n. 2, LARES 2, lifted off from Kourou (French Guiana) on board of the new European launcher Vega-C. The improved and more powerful version of the Vega, the rocket that in 2012 carried the first LARES satellite, put LARES 2 into an orbit which has supplementary inclination to the orbit of the LAGEOS satellite, launched in 1976 by NASA, and the same semimajor axis. This particular orbit is the main scientific requirement of the mission, because this configuration allows to cancel, in the data analysis,the effect of the classical gravitational perturbations (due to the even zonal harmonics of the Earth’s gravity field) on the drift of the node, and to measure the effect of the relativistic frame-dragging; an improvement of at least an order of magnitude in the accuracy of the measurement of the dragging of the inertial frames done with the first LARES satellite is indeed the main scientific target of the mission. Other relativistic and gravitational measurements and space geodesy and geodinamics determinations will be achieved by LARES 2. LARES 2 has been designed to be an improved target for laser ranging, even at an altitude of 5900 km. The spacecraft adopts some engineering solutions already tested with LARES, along with some novel improvements. In particular, the satellite carries 303 laser retroreflectors, smaller with respect to the ones mounted on LAGEOS and LARES, distributed with an optimized pattern on the spherical surface of LARES 2. This arrangement was expected to improve the ranging accuracy, and indeed the first data from the laser ranging stations that are tracking LARES 2 confirm that it seems to be the best target orbiting the Earth, at the same level or even better than the LAGEOS and LAGEOS 2 satellites, which are considered the benchmarks for this technique. This paper describes the satellite and the preliminary results of laser ranging after its first weeks in space.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
