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Preliminary orbital analysis of the LARES space experiment

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Abstract.

The LARES satellite was successfully launched in 2012 for tests of General Relativity and gravitational physics including the accurate measurement of frame-dragging. It is currently very well observed all over the world by the stations of the International Laser Ranging Service. Its preliminary orbital analyses show that LARES behaves as the best artificial massive test particle today available in the solar system, providing an optimal approximation to the time-like geodesic motion of General Relativity. Furthermore, on the basis of a test using almost three years of observations of LARES, we concluded that LARES, together with the LAGEOS and LAGEOS 2 satellites, provides excellent preliminary results for testing General Relativity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Innovazione, Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy

    Ignazio Ciufolini

  2. Centro Fermi, Rome, Italy

    Ignazio Ciufolini, Antonio Paolozzi & Claudio Paris

  3. Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale, Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, Italy

    Antonio Paolozzi & Giampiero Sindoni

  4. Goddard Earth Science and Technology Center (GEST), University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA

    Erricos C. Pavlis

  5. Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany

    Rolf Koenig

  6. Center for Space Research, University of Texas, Austin, USA

    John Ries

  7. Center for Cosmology and Astrophysics, Alikhanian National Laboratory, Yerevan, Armenia

    Vahe Gurzadyan

  8. Theory Group, University of Texas, Austin, USA

    Richard Matzner

  9. Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Roger Penrose

Authors
  1. Ignazio Ciufolini
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  2. Antonio Paolozzi
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  3. Erricos C. Pavlis
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  4. Rolf Koenig
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  5. John Ries
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  6. Vahe Gurzadyan
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  7. Richard Matzner
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  8. Roger Penrose
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  9. Giampiero Sindoni
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  10. Claudio Paris
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Correspondence to Ignazio Ciufolini.

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Ciufolini, I., Paolozzi, A., Pavlis, E.C. et al. Preliminary orbital analysis of the LARES space experiment. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 130, 133 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2015-15133-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2015-15133-2

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