Author/Authors :
J.P. Turneaure، نويسنده , , C.W.F. Everitt، نويسنده , , B.W. Parkinson، نويسنده , , D. Bardas، نويسنده , , Aron S. Buchman، نويسنده , , D.B. DeBra، نويسنده , , Edward H. Dougherty، نويسنده , , D. Gill، نويسنده , , J. Grammer، نويسنده , , G.B. Green، نويسنده , , G.M. Gutt، نويسنده , , D.-H. Gwo، نويسنده , , M. Heifetz، نويسنده , , N.J. Kasdin، نويسنده , , G.M. Keiser، نويسنده , , J.A. Lipa، نويسنده , , J.M. Lockhart، نويسنده , , J.C. Mester، نويسنده , , Barry Muhlfelder، نويسنده , , R. Parml، نويسنده ,
Abstract :
Gravity Probe B is an experiment to measure the geodetic and frame-dragging precessions, relative to the “fixed” “stars”, of a gyroscope placed in a 650 km altitude polar orbit about the earth. For Einsteinʹs general relativity, the precessions are calculated to be 6.6 arcsec/yr for the geodetic precession and 0.042 arcsec/yr for the frame-dragging precession. The goal of the experiment is to measure these precessions to better than 0.01% and 1%, respectively. This paper gives an overview of the experiment and a discussion of the flight hardware development and its status. This paper also includes an estimate of the geodetic and frame-dragging errors expected for the experiment.
