EARTH SATELLITES AND GRAVITOMAGNETIC FIELD

We discuss the possibility of measuring the Lense-Thirring (LT) gravitomagnetic effect on a «test-particle», using a) orbital elements other than the nodal longitude and b) existing or planned earth satellites and in particular laser-ranged satellites such as LAGEOS (hereafter, LAGEOS-I) LAGEOS-II and LAGEOS-III. Our conclusion is that, using the presently available satellites, the only orbital parameter suitable to measure the LT effect is the nodal longitude. Furthermore, existing or planned laser-ranged satellites, such as LAGEOS-I and LAGEOS-II, would not give enough information to measure the gravitomagnetic effect, unless a new satellite, such as LAGEOS-III, Ciufolini (1984), with inclination supplementary to that of LAGEOS-I, will be launched. For this purpose, we also discuss the orbital injection accuracy requirements for the LAGEOS-III satellite. © 1990 Società Italiana di Fisica.