Abstract
In this chapter, rather than undertaking a systematic review of space missions, we discuss four general themes, with a bias towards precise measurement techniques; these techniques exploit favourable space conditions, in particular the absence of an atmosphere, weak gravity and the vacuum, (i) The basis for a rational understanding of the physics of the solar system is direct exploration, in particular by planetary imaging; here we discuss optical imaging and Synthetic Aperture Radar, (ii) Astrometry by means of special optical telescopes and sensors in space has opened up a revolution in observational and theoretical astrophysics; we concentrate on the HIPPARCOS and Gaia projects, (iii) Distances to artificial Earth satellites, to the Moon and to planets have been obtained using the round-trip time of a short electromagnetic signal; apart from providing precise orbit determination of the tracked object, this is also an important technique for the investigation of the kinematics of Earth’s ectonic plates (Ch. 5) and its rotation (Ch. 3). (iv) Different space techniques have at last allowed testing gravitation theories to a very good accuracy and have confirmed Einstein’s General Relativity in the weak field approximation (Ch. 17).
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© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Bertotti, B., Farinella, P., Vokrouhlický, D. (2003). Precise Measurements in Space. In: Physics of the Solar System. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 293. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0233-2_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0233-2_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-1509-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-0233-2
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