Print Email Facebook Twitter The flyby anomaly: An investigation into potential causes Title The flyby anomaly: An investigation into potential causes Author Jouannic, B. Noomen, R. Van den IJssel, J.A.A. Faculty Aerospace Engineering Department Space Engineering Date 2015-12-31 Abstract Since December 1990, a number of spacecraft have performed a flyby around Earth in which an unexpected change in velocity has been observed, which has not been explained so far: the so-called flyby anomaly. The effect on the excess velocity has been expressed in an empirical relation by Anderson, which was based on data on 6 such flybys. However, new flybys did not fit this expression anymore. This paper has made a statistical analysis on a total of 12 flybys (not all of them showing such an anomaly), which has resulted in an improved empirical relation. In addition, the study has investigated a number of physical candidate explanations. Atmospheric drag was rejected as a potential cause, whereas direct solar radiation pressure is a possible candidate, either expressed as an overall coefficient CR or effectuated by (small) changes in reflectivity coefficients. However, because of lack of data (tracking data, attitude information) no firm conclusions can be drawn. Subject flybyanomalyastrodynamicssolar radiation pressure To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a537388f-c526-45ee-b762-514a8d0ed14f Publisher DLR Source Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium on Space Flight Dynamics ISSFD, Munich (Germany), Oct. 19-23, 2015 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type conference paper Rights (c) 2015 The Authors Files PDF 321195.pdf 421.15 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:a537388f-c526-45ee-b762-514a8d0ed14f/datastream/OBJ/view