LARES 1

LARES 1 was launched into orbit on 13 February 2012 at 10:00:00 UTC. It was launched on the first Vega rocket from the ESA Centre Spatial Guyanais in Kourou, French Guiana.^[5]

Composition

The satellite is made of THA-18N, a tungsten alloy,^[6] and houses 92 cube-corner retroreflectors, which are used to track the satellite via laser from stations on Earth. LARES's body has a diameter of about 36.4 centimetres (14.3 in) and a mass of about 387 kilograms (853 lb).^[1][7] LARES was inserted in a nearly circular orbit near 1,451 kilometres (902 mi) and an inclination of 69.49 degrees. The satellite is tracked by the International Laser Ranging Service stations.^[8]

The LARES satellite is the densest object known orbiting the Earth.^[1] The high density helps reduce disturbances from environmental factors such as solar radiation pressure.^{[citation needed]}

Scientific goals

The main scientific target of the LARES mission is the measurement of the Lense–Thirring effect with an accuracy of about 1%, according to principal investigator Ignazio Ciufolini and the LARES scientific team,^[9] but the reliability of that estimate is contested.^[10]

In contrast, a recent analysis of 3.5 years of laser-ranging data reported a claimed accuracy of about 4%.^[11] Critical remarks appeared later in the literature.^{[12][clarification needed]}

Beyond the project's key mission, the LARES satellite may be used for other tests of general relativity as well as measurements in the fields of geodynamics and satellite geodesy.^[13]