Thermal Analysis of the Pioneer Anomaly: A method to estimate radiative momentum transfer

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method using Lambertian sources to accurately estimate the thermal acceleration of Pioneer spacecraft, providing insights into the thermal origin of the Pioneer anomaly.

Contribution

The paper develops a novel point-like Lambertian source model for thermal analysis, enabling comprehensive estimation of spacecraft thermal acceleration effects.

Findings

The method offers reliable estimates of thermally induced acceleration.

Sensitivity analysis identifies key parameters influencing thermal acceleration.

Supports the hypothesis of thermal effects contributing to the Pioneer anomaly.

Abstract

We present a methodology based on point-like Lambertian sources that enables one to perform a reliable and comprehensive estimate of the overall thermally induced acceleration of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. We show, by developing a sensitivity analysis of the several parameters of the model, that one may achieve a valuable insight on the possible thermal origin of the so-called Pioneer anomaly.