Scientists have proposed a method for solving a serious conundrum that has troubled astrophysicists for the past 20 years. Spacecraft flying by the Earth receive an unpredictable speed boost
Over the past two decades, many scientists have been occupied with a rather exotic problem: why some space probes sent from Earth do not fly as predicted. There is a so-called "Pioneers" anomaly, which consists in the fact that the "Pioneer-10" and "Pioneer-11" satellites, flying to the outskirts of the solar system, slow down something slightly. There is also a second anomaly, the so-called "flyby". When planning many interplanetary missions, engineers force spaceships to carry out so-called gravity assist maneuvers. Having made such a maneuver near the Earth, the device receives a significant increase in speed, without consuming precious fuel.
However, while processing telemetry data, scientists sometimes notice that the speed increase received by the ship differs from the calculated one. The increase turns out to be insignificant (on the order of millimeters per second), but fixed and, most importantly, inexplicable.
Flyby anomaly
So, on December 8, 1990, the Galileo spacecraft unexpectedly increased its speed by 4 mm / s. On January 23, 1998, the Near probe acquired an unexplained speed boost of 13mm / s. During the Earth flight, the Cassini probe anomalously accelerated by 0.11 mm / s, and the Rosetta spacecraft, heading towards a distant asteroid, by 2 mm / s. It has been reliably established that the anomaly is not associated with the flattening of the Earth, the influence of other bodies in the solar system, relativistic effects, atmospheric drag, tides, etc. However, versions, including rather exotic ones, trying to explain the strange jumps of the apparatus, are a dime a dozen.
The most difficult problem is the impossibility of tracking the jumping process itself from the Earth. This is due to the fact that the terrestrial telemetry network is not able to monitor in real time the devices and their instantaneous speed, at the moment when they are as close to the Earth as possible. Therefore, there is a four-hour gap in the observation of the devices, when the most interesting happens.
Researchers led by Orfeu Bertolami of the University of Porto have come up with an inexpensive way to deal with cosmic devilry once and for all. In their work, scientists have shown that the problem can be solved with the help of modern or future global positioning systems. Launching a separate device with a GPS tracker installed on it, which will carry out the necessary maneuver near the Earth, will cost only $ 15 million.
And it will be even cheaper to attach a similar device to a ship of one of the future interplanetary missions. Such a device will make it possible to register changes in velocity every second and to understand the physical nature of this anomaly. Scientists pin great hopes in this matter on the Galileo satellite system, which is currently being developed in Europe, which should become a competitor to GPS and GLONASS. “Whatever the real cause of the anomaly, we believe that it will be a cheap opportunity to demonstrate the scientific capabilities of positioning systems, in particular Regardless,” concluded the scientists.