Related papers: Light-time computations for the BepiColombo radios…
Recently, Will calculated an additional contribution to the Mercury's precession of the longitude of perihelion $\varpi$ of the order of $\dot\varpi_\textrm{W}\simeq 0.22$ $\textrm{milliarcseconds per century}$ ($\textrm{mas cty}^{-1}$). It…
The upcoming space missions, MESSENGER and BepiColombo with onboard instrumentation capable of measuring the rotational parameters stimulate the objective to reach an accurate theory of the rotational motion of Mercury. For obtaining the…
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…
We investigate the relativistic modeling of spacecraft motion in Mercury's post-Newtonian local coordinates. This investigation is motivated by the fact that Mercury's post-Newtonian gravitational field (as well as that of any other planet)…
The validity of General Relativity, after 100 years, is supported by solid experimental evidence. However, there is a lot of interest in pushing the limits of precision by other experiments. Here we focus our attention on the equivalence…
Juno is a NASA mission launched in 2011 with the goal of studying Jupiter. The probe will arrive to the planet in 2016 and will be placed for one year in a polar high-eccentric orbit to study the composition of the planet, the gravity and…
Numerical simulations are playing an increasingly important role in modern science. In this work it is suggested to use a numerical study of the famous perihelion motion of the planet Mercury (one of the prime observables supporting…
The perihelion advance of the orbit of Mercury has long been one of the observational cornerstones for testing General Relativity (G.R.). The main goal of this paper is to discuss how, presently, observational and theoretical constraints…
We present here the new results obtained with the INPOP planetary ephemerides and BepiColombo radio-science simulations. We give new constraints for the classic General Relativity tests in terms of violation of the PPN parameters $\beta$…
We numerically work out the impact of the general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect on the Earth-Mercury range caused by the gravitomagnetic field of the rotating Sun. The peak-to peak nominal amplitude of the resulting time-varying signal…
Context. We use a global 3D hybrid plasma model to investigate the interaction between Mercury's magnetosphere and the solar wind for the second BepiColombo swingby, evaluate magnetospheric regions, and study the typical energy profile of…
The neutral particles sensor ELENA (Emitted Low Energy Neutral Atoms) for the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury (in the SERENA instrument suite) is devoted to measure low energetic neutral atoms. The main goal of the experiment is…
Here we explore the possibility of extending to the Solar System scenario the combined residual approach employed for the deterination of the Lense-Thirring effect in the Earth-LAGEOS satellites system. After calculating the secular…
We examine the first three BepiColombo Mercury flybys Using data from the Miniature Ion Precipitation Analyzer (MIPA), an ion mass analyzer in the Search for Exospheric Refilling and Natural Abundances (SERENA) package on the Mercury…
In this paper, we focus on the possibility to test General Relativity in the Solar System with radioscience measurements. To this aim, we present a new software that simulates Range and Doppler signals directly from the space-time metric.…
In this communication, we focus on the possibility to test GR with radioscience experiments. We present a new software that in a first step simulates the Range/Doppler signals directly from the space time metric (thus in GR and in…
In this paper we first calculate the post-Newtonian gravitoelectric secular rate of the mean anomaly of a test particle freely orbiting a spherically symmetric central mass. Then, we propose a novel approach to suitably combine the…
We analytically calculate the time series for the perturbations $\Delta\rho(t),~\Delta\dot\rho(t)$ induced by a general disturbing acceleration $\boldsymbol{A}$ on the mutual range $\rho$ and range-rate $\dot\rho$ of two test particles…
A test of a cornerstone of general relativity, the gravitational redshift effect, is currently being conducted with the RadioAstron spacecraft, which is on a highly eccentric orbit around Earth. Using ground radio telescopes to record the…
The laws of gravitation have been tested for a long time with steadily improving precision, leading at some moment of time to paradigmatic evolutions. Pursuing this continual effort is of great importance for science. In this communication,…