Narrow Results

We continue our exploration of whether the flyby anomalies can be explained by scattering of spacecraft nucleons from dark matter gravitationally bound to the earth. We formulate and analyze a simple model in which inelastic and elastic scatterers populate shells generated by the precession of circular orbits with normals tilted with respect to the earth's axis. Good fits to the data published by Anderson et al. are obtained.

We continue our exploration of whether the flyby anomalies can be explained by scattering of spacecraft nucleons from dark matter gravitationally bound to the Earth, with the addition of data from five new flybys to that from the original six. We continue to use our model in which inelastic and elastic scatterers populate shells generated by the precession of circular orbits with normals tilted with respect to the Earth's axis. With 11 data points and eight parameters in the model, a statistically meaningful fit is obtained with a chi-squared of 2.7. We give plots of the anomalous acceleration along the spacecraft trajectory, and the cumulative velocity change, for the five flybys which exhibit a significant nonzero anomaly. We also discuss implications of the fit for dark matter–nucleon cross-sections, give the prediction of our fit for the anomaly to be expected from the future Juno flyby, and give predictions of our fit for flyby orbit orientation changes. In addition, we give formulas for estimating the flyby temperature increase caused by dark matter inelastic scattering, and for the fraction of flyby nucleons undergoing such scatters. Finally, for circular satellite orbits, we give a table of predicted secular changes in orbit radius. These are much too large to be reasonable — comparing with data for COBE and GP-B supplied to us by Edward Wright (after the first version of this paper was posted), we find that our model predicts changes in orbit radius that are too large by many orders of magnitude. So the model studied here is ruled out. We conclude that further modeling of the flyby anomalies must simultaneously attempt to fit constraints coming from satellite orbits.

We propose the concept of a space mission to probe the so called flyby anomaly, an unexpected velocity change experienced by some deep-space probes using earth gravity assists. The key feature of this proposal is the use of GNSS systems to obtain an increased accuracy in the tracking of the approaching spacecraft, mainly near the perigee. Two low-cost options are also discussed to further test this anomaly: an add-on to an existing spacecraft and a dedicated mission.

We continue our exploration of whether the flyby anomalies can be explained by scattering of spacecraft nucleons from dark matter gravitationally bound to the earth. We formulate and analyze a simple model in which inelastic and elastic scatterers populate shells generated by the precession of circular orbits with normals tilted with respect to the earth's axis. Good fits to the data published by Anderson et al. are obtained.