1. Onera – The French Aerospace Lab, 29 avenue de la Division Leclerc, F-92322 Châtillon, France;2. Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (LKB), ENS, UPMC, CNRS, Campus Jussieu, F-75252 Paris Cedex 05, France
Abstract:
Radio tracking of interplanetary probes is an important tool for navigation purposes as well as for testing the laws of physics or exploring planetary environments. The addition of an accelerometer on board a spacecraft provides orbit determination specialists and physicists with an additional observable of great interest: it measures the value of the non-gravitational acceleration acting on the spacecraft, i.e. the departure of the probe from geodesic motion.