Other
Scientific paper
Apr 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011dda....42.0303s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #42, #3.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Other
Scientific paper
Thermal thrust (Yarkovsky) forces explain most of the observed drag on LAGEOS satellites. The large drag variation observed during eclipse seasons depends in part on the velocity direction during Earth eclipse relative to the satellite spin vector. Scharroo et al.(1991, JGR) demonstrated that a 0.02 difference in solar reflectivity between LAGEOS hemispheres could explain the LAGEOS 1 variation. LAGEOS 2 seems to require a similar difference. The cause of such a large reflectivity difference across the spin plane is unknown.
Thermal thrust analyses have not previously accounted for the differential solar heating of the two hemispheres resulting from the reflectivity difference. The darker hemisphere absorbs more solar radiation and becomes warmer than the other, thereby emitting more blackbody radiation along its end of the spin axis. The increase in the blackbody radiation reaction force on the darker hemisphere partially compensates for the reduced force from the reduced reflection of solar radiation by that hemisphere. To obtain the observed force difference between hemispheres thus requires a larger reflectivity difference than in the simple Scharroo model, which heightens the reflectivity mystery.
We propose an alternate hypothesis of uniform solar reflectivity, but with the aluminum bolts which hold the cube corner reflector assemblies in place screwed in tighter on one hemisphere. This results in a different heat flow between the retainer ring assemblies and the spacecraft interior in each hemisphere, resulting in an asymmetry in the blackbody radiation force.
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