MATERIAL AND MANUFACTURING OF LARES SATELLITE

Differently from all other laser ranged satellites, LARES is manufactured from a single piece bulk material. This choice offers a simpler design and will reduce thermal gradients on the satellite surface. To improve the surface-to-mass ratio, i.e., a parameter proportional to the intensity of most of the non gravitational perturbations, a high density material has been selected: tungsten alloy. A combination of data from two more satellites and a design of LARES aimed to reduce the non gravitational perturbations will allow the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect with an accuracy never reached before. This effect is predicted by Einstein General Relativity. Tungsten alloys have never been used for the entire construction of a satellite. For this reason a first breadboard, representative of a small portion of the satellite has been manufactured. This allowed to pin point a problem with the small screws of the cube corner reflector mounting system. After a description of the material and the procured semi-finished parts, particular interest will be devoted to the manufacturing process for the screws and to the microscopic analysis of the tungsten alloy screws that broke during mounting. A different manufacturing process for the screw is finally proposed.