Orbit Data Analysis of LAGEOS and LARES 2 Space Missions
Ignazio CIUFOLINI, Claudio PARIS, Darpanjeet DEKA, Emiliano ORTORE, Antonio PAOLOZZI
Abstract. LARES 2 satellite has been launched on 13 July 2022 for testing general relativity and, in particular, the phenomenon known as Lense-Thirring effect or frame-dragging. In fact, Earth rotation drags spacetime and LARES 2 orbit with it. Precise Orbit Determination using laser-ranging data enables the accurate measurement of the orbital node shift. A key challenge is to isolate from this shift the contribution due solely to General Relativity, which is several orders of magnitude smaller than the one from the gravitational one. To solve this issue, orbital data from LARES 2 will be combined with the ones of LAGEOS satellite, along with state-of-the-art models of Earth’s gravitational field. This paper describes the methodology which will be applied for the orbital analysis of the aforementioned satellite missions, which is essential to achieving the level of accuracy required by the scientific objectives of the LARES 2 space mission.
Keywords
LARES 2, LAGEOS, Precise Orbit Determination, General Relativity
Published online 7/20/2026, 5 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Ignazio CIUFOLINI, Claudio PARIS, Darpanjeet DEKA, Emiliano ORTORE, Antonio PAOLOZZI, Orbit Data Analysis of LAGEOS and LARES 2 Space Missions, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 69, pp 1120-1124, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904251-193
The article was published as article 193 of the book CEAS – AIDAA Conference 2025
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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