Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 1998
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998dda....30.0807s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #30, #08.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 30, p.1145
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Farinella et al. (1990) showed that thermal thrust (the solar-Yarkovsky force) gives a detectable rotation of the LAGEOS satellite orbit plane which must be allowed for when trying to detect the general-relativistic Lense-Thirring effect. The thrust acts along the spin axis for a rapidly spinning satellite. Attempts to test thermal thrust models with LAGEOS 1 orbit data have been hampered by uncertainty in the spin axis inertial direction. The orbit-injection attitude based on launch vehicle telemetry is the only data point available for the early years. Leo J. Sullivan at the MIT Lincoln Lab Firepond facility obtained infrared laser-beam reflections from individual germanium cube-corner reflectors on LAGEOS 1 in 1979 April 12, three years after launch. The measured Doppler shift of the returned signal varies with the spin period. This paper analyses the published data and finds that the spin axis pointed 79.5\arcdeg (or 110.5\arcdeg) from the line of sight and that the spin rate was 42.3 rpm. The nutational motion is also determined. The observations determine the satellite-hemisphere locations of the four germanium CCRs.
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