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The relativistic Doppler shift in satellite tracking
Author(s) -
Harkins Michael D.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
radio science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1944-799X
pISSN - 0048-6604
DOI - 10.1029/rs014i004p00671
Subject(s) - doppler effect , atomic clock , physics , tracking (education) , time dilation , satellite tracking , satellite , atomic beam , tests of general relativity , doppler frequency , noise (video) , theory of relativity , geodesy , computational physics , optics , beam (structure) , computer science , classical mechanics , geology , astronomy , psychology , pedagogy , numerical relativity , artificial intelligence , image (mathematics)
The recently launched (June 23, 1977) Navigation Technology Satellite 2 carries aboard it two high‐precision cesium beam atomic standards. The frequencies of these standards were preset to agree with similar ground‐based oscillators to within a few parts in 10 12 . An analysis of about 4 days of low‐noise Doppler tracking revealed a frequency bias between the orbiting clocks and the ground‐based clocks at the tracking sites. This observed bias was 4.47 parts in 10 10 , which is consistent with a predicted frequency bias arising from the special relativity time dilation effect coupled with a frequency blue shift predicted by general relativity.