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On the Systematic Errors in the Detection of the Lense-Thirring Effect with a Mars Orbiter

Giampiero Sindoni·Claudio Paris·Paolo Ialongo
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Abstract

We show here that the recent claim of a test of the Lense-Thirring effect with an error of 0.5% using the Mars Global Surveyor is misleading and the quoted error is incorrect by a factor of at least ten thousand. Indeed, the simple error analysis of [1] neglects the role of some important systematic errors affecting the out-of-plane acceleration. The preliminary error analysis presented here shows that even an optimistic uncertainty for this measurement is at the level of, at least, ~ 3026% to ~ 4811%, i.e., even an optimistic uncertainty is about 30 to 48 times the Lense-Thirring effect. In other words by including only some systematic errors we obtained an uncertainty almost ten thousand times larger than the claimed 0.5% error.

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Giampiero Sindoni, Claudio Paris, Paolo Ialongo. 2007-01-26. On the Systematic Errors in the Detection of the Lense-Thirring Effect with a Mars Orbiter. https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0701141

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