Determining Gravitational Attraction by Mass Property Measurements
Aaron J. Swank, K. Sun, D. DeBra
Dec 8, 2006
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Key Takeaway Key Takeaway: This study presents a novel five-wire torsion pendulum method for measuring moment of inertia, which reduces errors due to translational degrees of freedom, and optical angular sensing using diffraction grating angstroms, enabling precise determination of gravitational attraction properties for space
Abstract
The acceleration generated by the gradient of the mass attraction field between the spacecraft and proof mass is one parameter critical to drag‐free performance. The gravitational self‐attraction properties between two distributed bodies is characterized by the mass, mass center and moment of inertia for each body. Mass property measurements can therefore be used to indirectly measure the mass attraction properties. Since the ultimate goal is to demonstrate the ability to predict the system gravitational mass attraction force and force gradients to a precision below that of the LISA requirements, the corresponding properties of mass, mass center, and moment of inertia must be precisely determined for the proof mass and satellite components. This work introduces a new method for measuring the moment of inertia using a novel five‐wire torsion pendulum, which reduces errors due to translational degrees of freedom. The five‐wire pendulum is integrated with optical angular sensing using diffraction grating ang...