A reassessment of the systematic gravitational error in the LARES mission

TL;DR

This paper reevaluates the gravitational error in the LARES mission for testing relativistic effects, proposing a more conservative approach that improves the accuracy of gravitational modeling using specific satellite data combinations.

Contribution

It introduces a new combination of satellite orbital elements that reduces sensitivity to Earth's gravity model uncertainties, enhancing the reliability of relativistic gravitomagnetism tests.

Findings

The new combination minimizes gravitational error sensitivity.

Using the diagonal part of the covariance matrix yields more conservative estimates.

The approach is insensitive to higher-degree Earth's gravity harmonics.

Abstract

In this letter we reexamine the evaluation of \zone in some proposed tests of relativistic gravitomagnetism with existing and proposed laser--ranged LAGEOS--like satellites in the gravitational field of the Earth. A more conservative and realistic approach is followed by using the diagonal part only of the covariance matrix of the EGM96 Earth's gravity model up to degree l=20. It turns out that, within this context and according to the present level of knowledge of the terrestrial gravitational field, the best choice would be the use of a recently proposed combination using the nodes \Omega of LAGEOS, LAGEOS II and LARES and the perigees \omega of LAGEOS II and LARES. Indeed, it turns out to be insensitive both to the even zonal harmonics of degree higher than l=20 and to the correlation among them