Following an analysis of the anomalous spin behavior of Pioneer 10 (see Section 2.3.7, and also
Figure 2.16), the Pioneer 10 data set was further divided into three intervals. Interval I contained data
January 3, 1987 to July 17, 1990; Interval II, from July 17, 1990 to July 12, 1992; and Interval III, from
July 12, 1992 to July 22, 1998 (Table 5.1).
Analysis of results shown in Table 5.1 let the collaboration develop their estimate for the baseline
“experimental” values for Pioneer 10 and 11 [27]. They found the optimally weighted least-squares solution
“experimental” number for Pioneer 10:
Program | Method | Corona | P10 (I) | P10 (II) | P10 (III) | P11 |
ODP | WLS | no | 8.02 ± 0.01 | 8.65 ± 0.01 | 7.83 ± 0.01 | 8.64 ± 0.04 |
ODP | WLS | yes | 8.00 ± 0.01 | 8.66 ± 0.01 | 7.84 ± 0.01 | 8.44 ± 0.04 |
ODP | BSF | yes | 7.82 ± 0.29 | 8.16 ± 0.40 | 7.59 ± 0.22 | 8.49 ± 0.33 |
CHASMP | WLS | no | 8.25 ± 0.02 | 8.86 ± 0.02 | 7.85 ± 0.01 | 8.71 ± 0.03 |
CHASMP | WLS | yes | 8.22 ± 0.02 | 8.89 ± 0.02 | 7.92 ± 0.01 | 8.69 ± 0.03 |
CHASMP | WLS+F10.7 | yes | 8.25 ± 0.03 | 8.90 ± 0.03 | 7.91 ± 0.01 | 8.91 ± 0.04 |
The main conclusions of the 2002 study [27] can be summarized as follows:
Initial announcement of the anomalous acceleration (e.g., [24, 390
]) triggered many proposals that
invoked various conventional physics mechanisms, all aimed at explaining the origin of the anomaly. Finding
a systematic origin of the proper magnitude and behavior was the main focus of these proposals. Although
the most obvious explanation would be that there is a systematic origin to the effect, perhaps generated by
the spacecraft themselves from anisotropic heat rejection or propulsive gas leaks, the analysis did not
find evidence for either mechanism: That is, no unambiguous, on-board systematic has been
discovered.
This initial search was summarized in [27, 28], where possible contributions of various mechanisms to
the final solution for
were given. The entire error budget was subdivided in three main types of effects,
namely i) effects due to sources external to the spacecraft; ii) the contribution of on-board systematics; and
iii) computational systematic errors
(see Table 5.2.) These three categories are detailed in the following sections.
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