Related papers: Laser Ranging for Gravitational, Lunar, and Planet…
The speed of laser light pulses launched from Earth and returned by a retro-reflector on the Moon was calculated from precision round-trip time-of-flight measurements and modeled distances. The measured speed of light (c) in the moving…
The study of the generation of metric perturbation in the laboratory presents an opportunity to observe and understand more easily the mechanisms at work in gravitation. The present study will focus on the metric perturbation generated by a…
Laser-ranging satellites have proved their efficiency in high precision testing of General Relativity and constraining modified gravity theories proposed to explain the dark sector and the cosmological tensions. The LARES 2 satellite…
Phobos Laser Ranging (PLR) is a concept for a space mission designed to advance tests of relativistic gravity in the solar system. PLR's primary objective is to measure the curvature of space around the Sun, represented by the Eddington…
Since the very beginning of astronomy the location of objects on the sky has been a fundamental observational quantity that has been taken for granted. While precise two dimensional positional information is easy to obtain for observations…
LLR measures the distance between observatories on Earth and retro-reflectors on Moon since 1969. In this paper, we study the possible violation of the equality of passive and active gravitational mass ($m_{a}/m_{p}$), for Aluminium (Al)…
This paper discusses the scientific objectives for the ESA Lunar Lander Mission, which emphasise human exploration preparatory science and introduces the model scientific payload considered as part of the on-going mission studies, in…
In recent years, the Moon has emerged as an unparalleled extraterrestrial testbed for advancing cuttingedge technological and scientific research critical to enabling sustained human presence on its surface and supporting future…
The application of directed energy to spacecraft mission design is explored using rapid transit to Mars as the design objective. An Earth-based laser array of unprecedented size (10~m diameter) and power (100~MW) is assumed to be enabled by…
Some human mission trajectories to Mars include flybys of Venus. These flybys provide opportunities to practice deep space human operations, and offer numerous safe-return-to-Earth options, before committing to longer and lower-cadence…
Radio pulsars are fascinating and extremely useful objects. Despite our on-going difficulties in understanding the details of their emission physics, they can be used as precise cosmic clocks in a wide-range of experiments -- in particular…
Space exploration has been on the rise since the 1960s. Along with the other planets such as Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter, Mars certainly plays a significant role in the history of space exploration and has the potential to be the…
Exploration of terrestrial planets such as Mars are conducted using orbiters, landers and rovers. Cameras and instruments onboard orbiters have enabled global mapping of Mars at low spatial resolution. Landers and rovers such as the Mars…
The next generation of gravitational wave detectors and electromagnetic telescopes are beckoning the onset of the multi-messenger era and the exciting science that lies ahead. Multi-messenger strong gravitational lensing will help probe…
Astrometry is one of the oldest branches of astronomy which measures the position, the proper motion and parallax of celestial objects. Following the Hipparcos and Gaia missions that have measured several billions of them using global…
Sky survey telescopes and powerful targeted telescopes play complementary roles in astronomy. In order to investigate the nature and characteristics of the motions of very faint objects, a flexibly-pointed instrument capable of high…
We experimentally demonstrate a novel interferometric architecture for next-generation gravity missions, featuring a laser ranging interferometer (LRI) that enables monoaxial transmission and reception of laser beams between two optical…
The current knowledge of Mercury orbit has mainly been gained by direct radar ranging obtained from the 60s to 1998 and by five Mercury flybys made by Mariner 10 in the 70s, and MESSENGER made in 2008 and 2009. On March 18, 2011, MESSENGER…
Ambitious studies of Earth-like extrasolar planets are outlined in the context of an exploration initiative for a return to the Earth's Moon. Two mechanism for linearly polarizing light reflected from Earth-like planets are discussed: 1)…
Long range observations in the field of astronomy have opened up our understanding of the Solar System, the Galaxy and the wider Universe. In this paper we discuss the idea of direct in-situ reconnaissance of nearby stellar systems, using…