THERMAL TESTS ON LARES SATELLITE COMPONENTS

摘要

LARES Satellite has been conceived adopting an innovative design. The main body of the satellite is in fact madeof one single piece of tungsten alloy. It is a passive satellite and it has been launched successfully on the 13th ofFebruary 2012 with the first flight of the new launcher, VEGA. LARES mission has been developed for testingEinstein general relativity and in particular the Lense-Thirring effect. LARES weights almost 400 kg and its surfaceis covered with 92 cube corner reflectors (CCR s) made of fused silica. The satellite orbit is reconstructed using thedata collected by laser ranging stations belonging to the International Laser Ranging Service. This innovative design,due to the particular material used, needed accurate testing of the optical components because of the hightemperatures expected on the satellite operative life. A series of tests to qualify the design have been performed inthe Thermal Vacuum Chamber of Sapienza University in Rome. In this paper the results will be summarized.