Pioneer Anomaly 2017

On Wednesday, May 31, 2017 at 4:26:13 AM UTC-4, wrote:
.. Craig - msk.. you are much higther than me in the cohomprension of the Pioneer 'anomaly .. at this point , i go back home near the fire ,.. i have only one question : why in the historical figure 6 , the sun 'pressure is of opposite sign ( + sun'pressure and - the anomaly'acceleration ) regards to the anomaly and in the last pages of the same report , the 'sun'pressure' and the 'radio beam reaction force' have , ofcourse , the same sign + , but -there- also the anomaly has their same sign + ( also in the precedent page , their quantities are added to the anomaly ) ? ..thanks ..

You're right, Anderson et al do not really report all values with a consistent sign convention. They just say in words that the "anomaly" is an inward acceleration, whereas the other terms you mention are outward. The numbers reported are absolute values, not signed.

CM

On Friday, May 26, 2017 at 1:26:26 AM UTC+10, Craig Markwardt wrote:
---
---

The following paragraph is exactly as written in Anderson's
paper.
---
The radio Doppler and range data from the Cassini mission could
offer a potential contribution. This mission was launched on 15
October 1997. The potential data arc will be the cruise phase
from after the Jupiter flyby (30 December 2000) to the vicinity
of Saturn (just before the Huygens probe release) in July 2004.
Even though the Cassini spacecraft is in three-axis-stabilization
mode, using on-board active thrusters, it was built with very
sophisticated radio-tracking capabilities, with X-band being the
main navigation frequency. (There will also be S- and K-band
links.) Further, during much of the cruise phase, reaction wheels
will be used for stabilization instead of thrusters. Their use
will aid relativity experiments at solar conjunction and
gravitational wave experiments at solar opposition. (Observe,
however, that the relatively large systematic from the close in
Cassini RTGs will have to be accounted for.)
---

And this part paragraph was taken from one of your replies on
this subject.
"No effect similar to the Pioneer anomaly has been detected with
the Cassini doppler data."

The ASCII diagram below (excluding the Cassini reference)
represents FIG.2 of Turyshev's paper. How it appears will of
course depend on your newsreader. Or visit
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.2507v1
According to Turyshev the acceleration rate toward the sun
generated by the thermal emission advantage that's pointing away
from the sun is greater between jupiter and saturn than it is at
20 AU. And that's the reverse of the much lesser anomaly
**onset** noted by the Pioneer analysts when Pioneer was
traveling between jupiter and saturn. Why would they not easily
notice an even larger discrepancy between observation and
expectations according to current theory at the time, which
obviously didn't involve such things as Turyshev's thermal
solution? Anderson's analysis would have been based on much the
same logic as well.


10 20 30 40 AU
.......................
100 I_o________________________
I o
WattsI ^ ^ o o o o (negative anomaly)
I ^ ^
0 I__^__^____________________
I ^ ^
I ^ ^Saturn (Cassini arrives 2004)
I ^Jupiter
-100 I__________________________
---^-------^-------^-------^--
1975 1980 1985 1990


The Cassini HGA dish properties would be much the same as those
for Pioneer. As would be the RTG surface coatings. Even if they
weren't, their properties would have been established prior to
launch. Then there's the "relatively large systematic from the
close in Cassini RTGs" to be considered.

If Turyshev's thermal solution accounts for the Pioneer anomaly,
why isn't it also required to account for a Cassini anomaly?
How do you explain the non-gravitational acceleration of
Cassini (as predicted by my theory) ???

On Wednesday, May 24, 2017 at 11:42:40 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 4:36:17 AM UTC+10, Craig Markwardt wrote:
---
---
Actually, you are right, Anderson's arguments were fairly convincing
FOR THE TIME. What happened is that the Turyshev et al 2012 work
came up with *more convincing* evidence of what's going on. Heck,
the section you quote says, "complete thermal/physical model of
the spacecraft might be able to ascertain if there are any other
unsuspected heat systematics," but then dismisses it. It turns out
that was a premature dismissal. It doesn't take much to see that
Anderson did a very crude estimate using simple geometry, when it
is now clear a higher fidelity approach was required.

That's not so at all. Anderson dismissed the idea because it was
**CLEARLY** incapable of generating the Pioneer anomaly. Perhaps
you should read it again.

Again, your appeal to authority. See #2 below. You don't deny
that Anderson's work was simplistic and crude compared to
Turyshev's.

I don't know how you arrive at "simplistic and crude". Anderson's
analysis is **absolutely brilliant**. Complicating a process
isn't necessarily more constructive, but it can certainly be more
confusing.
---
---

"exact thermal coatings used by Pioneer"? Did they know something
Turyshev didn't?

Cute. Rather that learning about thermal emissivity properties,
you instead decide to invent a conspiracy theory (see #5 below).
The thermal coatings were documented, and *some* UV and radiation
tests were performed on those coatings in laboratories, but they
did not mimic the exact space environment the Pioneers
experienced. So do we really know the amount of degradation
experienced? What we do know is that most thermal coatings
degrade by changing their optical reflectivity (absorptivity) but
have very little change to the infrared emissivity. You could have
read about this but did not.

Increased absorptivity with no change in emissivity only reduces
solar radiation pressure. It has no effect whatever on the
fore/aft drive ratio from the internally generated RTG thermal
energy. Think about it. The emissivity of the surfaces hasn't
changed at all. And without the sunward drive asymmetry the
thermal solution fails.

The only way the thermal solution can work is if the RTG surface
coating reduces emissivity as it degrades as a result of solar
radiation. But logic tells me that an absorptivity increase is
directly linked to an emissivity increase, not an emissivity
decrease. I can accept that it could decrease slightly, but in
order to satisfy the thermal solution the emissivity decrease
needs to be roughly equal to the negative of the absorptivity
increase. Which is ridiculous.

Where would one find such a coating? What on earth have they fed
into that computer simulation?
---
---

If the sun facing RTG coating has degraded to the point where
the internally generated heat emission is at the error bar limit
while all other anomaly negatives have been set at their most
negative limits, some error bars overlap and the anomaly is
proclaimed dead.

That's kind of how science works. Compare the tolerances of
the experiment with the tolerances of the theory, and if they
overlap, then we cannot reject the theory.

In this case we cannot reject the thermal origin theory.

That theory has clearly failed.

And by the principle of Occam's razor, if we have a "new physics"
theory and a "basic physics" theory which are both consistent
with the data, then we choose the basic physics. This is basic
science. Why would we pick new physics when mundane physics will
suffice?

You're apparently not referring to Anderson's analysis of the
Pioneer anomaly because it's based on old mundane physics as
well. But old mundane physics clearly fails to explain the
Pioneer anomaly. Perhaps we can at last move on beyond the
dark ages of physics.

-----

Max Keon

Il giorno mercoledì 31 maggio 2017 22:00:17 UTC+2, Craig Markwardt ha scritto:
On Wednesday, May 31, 2017 at 4:26:13 AM UTC-4, wrote:
.. Craig - msk.. you are much higther than me in the cohomprension of the Pioneer 'anomaly .. at this point , i go back home near the fire ,... i have only one question : why in the historical figure 6 , the sun 'pressure is of opposite sign ( + sun'pressure and - the anomaly'acceleration ) regards to the anomaly and in the last pages of the same report , the 'sun'pressure' and the 'radio beam reaction force' have , ofcourse , the same sign + , but -there- also the anomaly has their same sign + ( also in the precedent page , their quantities are added to the anomaly ) ? ..thanks ...

You're right, Anderson et al do not really report all values with a consistent sign convention. They just say in words that the "anomaly" is an inward acceleration, whereas the other terms you mention are outward. The numbers reported are absolute values, not signed.

CM

... i beg your pardon .. i agree that the numbers could be in absolute value , witout sign .. also that the fig 6 can be an historical fig .. but in conclusion (final pages 72-73) : the numbers(values) of Sun'pressure and Radio-beam-reaction are added and its(two) have the effect of pushing away from the sun ... its are added to the anomaly ('' 7.84 + 0.9 = 8.74 extimate of total bias/error'' ) for giving the final effect : is this total effect an escape from the sun ?
... i repeit a reveiled (to me) position of Turishev many years ago (2000?) ...: he thought that an (attractive) disomogeneity of the Kuiper'Belt could justify the anomaly !
( at page 34 of the report that i have : 5.2 First Aerospace study.. , they wrote '' This CHAMP analisys of Pioneer 10 data also showed an unmodeled acceleration ..toward the sun .. value 8.65*10.. '' ; the following phrase says '' Without using the apparent acceleration , CHAMP shows a steady frequency drift of about -6*10.. Hz/s , or 1.5 Hz over 8 years . This equates to a clock acceleration of -2.8*10.. '' .. the clock is slowering like if the rocket is going away from the sun !
How they can speak about an unmodeled acceleration toward the sun ?

On Thursday, June 1, 2017 at 10:19:22 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Il giorno mercoledì 31 maggio 2017 22:00:17 UTC+2, Craig Markwardt ha scritto:
On Wednesday, May 31, 2017 at 4:26:13 AM UTC-4, wrote:
....
.. i beg your pardon .. i agree that the numbers could be in absolute value , witout sign .. also that the fig 6 can be an historical fig .. but in conclusion (final pages 72-73) : the numbers(values) of Sun'pressure and Radio-beam-reaction are added and its(two) have the effect of pushing away from the sun ... its are added to the anomaly ('' 7.84 + 0.9 = 8.74 extimate of total bias/error'' ) for giving the final effect : is this total effect an escape from the sun ?

Can you please download a more recent version of the paper? Your page numbers are not recognizable to me. (https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0104064)

The items in Table II are listed as positive (+) is an outward bias and negative (-) is an inward bias. The net bias in that table, +0.90, is outward.. If one is *expecting* an outward signal of +0.90, and *measure* an inward signal of -7.84, then the actual "anomaly" would be an inward amount of -8.74 (in the units of the paper). Their math works, in absolute value, because they knew the signs of the quantities.





... This equates to a clock acceleration of -2.8*10.. '' .. the clock is slowering like if the rocket is going away from the sun !
How they can speak about an unmodeled acceleration toward the sun ?

They are speaking of a hypothetical clock error on the ground stations (receiving and transmitting stations), not of the spacecraft. The spacecraft clock is irrelevant in coherent mode.

CM

On Thursday, June 1, 2017 at 6:44:11 AM UTC-4, wrote:
The following paragraph is exactly as written in Anderson's
paper.
.... trim for brevity ...
The Cassini HGA dish properties would be much the same as those
for Pioneer. As would be the RTG surface coatings. Even if they
weren't, their properties would have been established prior to
launch. Then there's the "relatively large systematic from the
close in Cassini RTGs" to be considered.

If Turyshev's thermal solution accounts for the Pioneer anomaly,
why isn't it also required to account for a Cassini anomaly?
How do you explain the non-gravitational acceleration of
Cassini (as predicted by my theory) ???

Why don't you consult the PhD Thesis of "The non-gravitational accelerations of the Cassini spacecraft and the nature of the Pioneer anomaly" by Mauro di Benedetto. You've been referred to it several times, but conveniently ignore it.

Whatever your unsubstantiated assumptions, the Pioneers and Cassini are not identical. There are several quite substantial differences.

First of all, no-one has done a thermal model of Cassini for the purposes of asymmetric radiation patterns, so it is not possible to comment either way if they should be significant. These calculations depend somewhat sensitively on where the power-producing and -consuming components are located and the view factors to other bodies and to space. Cassini is configured in a much different way than the Pioneers so we cannot assume similarity. You just decided to speculate without substantiation that Cassini is similar to the Pioneers, but why do that without evidence?

Second of all, there are things we *know* are very different. Cassini is ~10x more massive than Pioneers. The Pioneers area to mass ratio is about 10 times larger than the Cassini area to mass ratio. This means that *accelerations* due to solar and internally-generated thermal are about 10x smaller for the same input signal.

If you had bothered to read the di Benedetto thesis you would have found extensive discussions of the RTGs, which are quite different than the Pioneers’ RTGs.

The Cassinis were equipt with temperature sensors on the HGA which provide independent knowledge of the solar absorptivity. Pioneers have no such thing. You could have read about this but did not.

The thermal coatings, while both *white*, are quite different. The Cassini HGA coating is known as PCBZ, and was chosen after careful study to meet mission requirements (Fabiani & Constable 1997). The chemical compositions are quite different (Zinc-based topcoat of PCBZ vs TiO2 of Thermatrol). So why assume they are very similar without substantiation?


Again, your appeal to authority. See #2 below. You don't deny
that Anderson's work was simplistic and crude compared to
Turyshev's.

I don't know how you arrive at "simplistic and crude". Anderson's
analysis is **absolutely brilliant**. Complicating a process
isn't necessarily more constructive, but it can certainly be more
confusing.

Whether or not it is confusing to you is irrelevant. Going to the “next level� requires fidelity that can’t be achieved with Anderson’s back of the envelope types of calculations.

Anderson et al very capably performed simple plate-like and point-like approximations, but no more. They argue by analogy. They argue verbally but not quantitatively. For example, in section VIII.D. (non-isotropic radiation), Anderson argues that because the “anomaly� is constant but the compartment power is not, we can dismiss this explanation. But Anderson et al do not treat the tolerances of either quantity, and these are crucial. Turyshev *did* treat them, in a much more careful way.

What happened in 2011 is that Turyshev Toth Ellis & Markwardt retrieved additional data from the 1979-1986 range, that added to the total arcs for both Pioneers. You can read about it if you want. And we found that with that additional data, we could no longer claim that the “anomaly� was constant, but rather varied slowly. So a fundamental assumption by Anderson was incorrect.

And, the Turyshev et al 2012 paper found that the variations in the measured “anomaly� were consistent with those expected from the combinations of solar pressure, RTGs and electric power dissipated in instrument compartments.

So, sorry to burst your bubble, but it turned out that Anderson et al’s conclusions from 2001 were too simple and speculative, and also not born out by the data or the detailed thermal modeling. Why you insist on hugging that result when more refined results and Doppler data have followed is close to madness.

"exact thermal coatings used by Pioneer"? Did they know something
Turyshev didn't?

Cute. Rather that learning about thermal emissivity properties,
you instead decide to invent a conspiracy theory (see #5 below).
The thermal coatings were documented, and *some* UV and radiation
tests were performed on those coatings in laboratories, but they
did not mimic the exact space environment the Pioneers
experienced. So do we really know the amount of degradation
experienced? What we do know is that most thermal coatings
degrade by changing their optical reflectivity (absorptivity) but
have very little change to the infrared emissivity. You could have
read about this but did not.

Increased absorptivity with no change in emissivity only reduces
solar radiation pressure. It has no effect whatever on the
fore/aft drive ratio from the internally generated RTG thermal
energy. Think about it. The emissivity of the surfaces hasn't
changed at all. And without the sunward drive asymmetry the
thermal solution fails.

You seem fixated upon the RTGs. The more detailed work of Turyshev’s work did include the effects of the RTGs, yes, but the primary new area of work was the emissions of the fore compartments, which had been hardly treated by Anderson before.


If the sun facing RTG coating has degraded to the point where
the internally generated heat emission is at the error bar limit
while all other anomaly negatives have been set at their most
negative limits, some error bars overlap and the anomaly is
proclaimed dead.

That's kind of how science works. Compare the tolerances of
the experiment with the tolerances of the theory, and if they
overlap, then we cannot reject the theory.

In this case we cannot reject the thermal origin theory.

That theory has clearly failed.

No evidence provided for that claim, so it is irrelevant. In fact, Turyshev et al’s work in 2012 is backed up by pre-launch data and a validated approach to thermal modeling.


And by the principle of Occam's razor, if we have a "new physics"
theory and a "basic physics" theory which are both consistent
with the data, then we choose the basic physics. This is basic
science. Why would we pick new physics when mundane physics will
suffice?

You're apparently not referring to Anderson's analysis of the
Pioneer anomaly because it's based on old mundane physics as
well. But old mundane physics clearly fails to explain the
Pioneer anomaly. Perhaps we can at last move on beyond the
dark ages of physics.

Or, we can look at the work of many researchers that came after the Anderson paper, and see that additional application of “mundane� physics can solve the anomaly. There is no reason to appeal to new physics.


But let’s summarize the issues you seem to be willfully ignoring.

1. You continue to mention that somehow Turyshev’s 2012 work is about “solar thermalâ€� or RTGs, when that is incorrect. Â*It is about solar thermal and RTGs yes, but mostly about internally-generated thermal. Â*When noted, you ignore or distract.

2. You continue to ask about what is in the Turyshev 2012 paper. Â*I continue to refer you to it, but you ignore or distract.

3. You continue to ask about what is different between the Anderson 2001 and Turyshev 2012 works. Â*I reply with detailed points, but you ignore or distract.

4. You continue to appeal to authority of Anderson’s work for thermal aspects. Â*However, Anderson’s work in this topic is rather crude, and limited to point-like and plate-like approximations. Â* Even Anderson noted that a higher fidelity model could be useful and Turyshev’s 2012 work accomplished it! Â*You continue to ignore or distract from this point.

5. You continue to speculate how spacecraft thermal systems work based on your intuition. I’ve referred you to authoritative works, but you ignore.

6. You’ve speculated that somehow the curve of the anomaly “onsetâ€� from Anderson’s paper is somehow rock solid, when in fact nobody has been able to show the provenance of that curve, or to replicate it. Â*You ignore this fact.

7. To bolster your case that the anomaly “onsetâ€� curve is real, you’ve decided that analysts from the 1970s were special wizards with more skill than today’s analysts. Â*In fact, the opposite was the case: analysts of the time were still learning the craft. Â*I provided citations to published papers about this. Â*You conveniently ignore it.

8. You’ve tried to discount Turyshev’s 2012 work by claiming that it’s an outlier and that every other researcher could not agree with a thermal original. But these are false. Â*Other researchers were considering a thermal origin and consistent with Turyshev’s 2012 work. Â*You continue to ignore this.

9. You’ve speculated that it should be easy to know about or replicate the thermal quantities of the Pioneer systems. Â*When the error of this statement was pointed out, you ignored or distracted.

10. You’ve speculated about the performance of the Cassini spacecraft and argue by analogy that Pioneer and Cassini work can be interchanged blindly. That is not true: the spacecraft were quite different and in a careful treatment must be considered separately. You’ve been referred to papers about Cassini but continue to ignore.

So I ask again: if this is so important to you, why don’t you stop ignoring important things? Â*It's clear you have your own theory to hawk, and are willing to ignore anything that disagrees with it. Â*So why should we listen to you?

CM

Il giorno lunedì 5 giugno 2017 17:03:10 UTC+2, Craig Markwardt ha scritto:
On Thursday, June 1, 2017 at 10:19:22 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Il giorno mercoledì 31 maggio 2017 22:00:17 UTC+2, Craig Markwardt ha scritto:
On Wednesday, May 31, 2017 at 4:26:13 AM UTC-4, wrote:
...
.. i beg your pardon .. i agree that the numbers could be in absolute value , witout sign .. also that the fig 6 can be an historical fig .. but in conclusion (final pages 72-73) : the numbers(values) of Sun'pressure and Radio-beam-reaction are added and its(two) have the effect of pushing away from the sun ... its are added to the anomaly ('' 7.84 + 0.9 = 8.74 extimate of total bias/error'' ) for giving the final effect : is this total effect an escape from the sun ?

Can you please download a more recent version of the paper? Your page numbers are not recognizable to me. (https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0104064)

The items in Table II are listed as positive (+) is an outward bias and negative (-) is an inward bias. The net bias in that table, +0.90, is outward. If one is *expecting* an outward signal of +0.90, and *measure* an inward signal of -7.84, then the actual "anomaly" would be an inward amount of -8.74 (in the units of the paper). Their math works, in absolute value, because they knew the signs of the quantities.





... This equates to a clock acceleration of -2.8*10.. '' .. the clock is slowering like if the rocket is going away from the sun !
How they can speak about an unmodeled acceleration toward the sun ?

They are speaking of a hypothetical clock error on the ground stations (receiving and transmitting stations), not of the spacecraft. The spacecraft clock is irrelevant in coherent mode.

CM

... many thanks for your answer and patience ..
... i read the reference' paper that you showed to me (2005) .. this paper says at page 42 '' the Radio Beam Reaction produces the largest bias to our result 1,10 ... It makes the Pioneer effect larger .'' the question : is the Radio Beam pushing highter away from the sun ( because the Radio Beam push away?! )? so , is the anomaly away from the sun ?

... at page 30 , like you say correctly , they are speaking of the terrestrial (ground) clocks ; at page 31 , they conclude that this clocks were good , without contributing factor .. the clock inside was good .. : but , i conclude , the bigger drift (anomaly) was 'like if the rocket was escaping speedder from the sun' .. my suggested solution is that the bias (anomaly) is depending to the distance ( highter distance , highter bias ) ... like it happen in the Bigbang .. caused-probably- by the Raman effect (or Raman scattering) functioning (a little, like the 'tired light') in conditions of very low temperature and pressure as in very hight vacuum ...

On Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 10:15:41 AM UTC-4, wrote:
.. i read the reference' paper that you showed to me (2005) .. this paper says at page 42 '' the Radio Beam Reaction produces the largest bias to our result 1,10 ... It makes the Pioneer effect larger .'' the question : is the Radio Beam pushing highter away from the sun ( because the Radio Beam push away?! )? so , is the anomaly away from the sun ?

The high gain antenna faces the earth (and approximately, faces the sun). Radio beam emissions directed inward toward the earth will act to push the craft outward. This is conservation of momentum, basic physics.

So here's the situation. We *expected* an outward acceleration of 0.9, and instead measured an *inward* acceleration of 7.84. The differences between these two, in a vector sense, is 8.74. They "add" because the measured vector is in the opposite direction from the expectation.

CM

I would like to add something, which I had not fully appreciated until now.

It has to do with how the effective reflectivity of the high gain antenna was determined, but it has everything to do with the "onset" of the anomaly. As we know, there was some a priori information about the high gain antenna optical properties, but there was also the expectation of some degradation.

Il giorno mercoledì 7 giugno 2017 22:30:33 UTC+2, Craig Markwardt ha scritto:
On Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 10:15:41 AM UTC-4, wrote:
.. i read the reference' paper that you showed to me (2005) .. this paper says at page 42 '' the Radio Beam Reaction produces the largest bias to our result 1,10 ... It makes the Pioneer effect larger .'' the question : is the Radio Beam pushing highter away from the sun ( because the Radio Beam push away?! )? so , is the anomaly away from the sun ?

The high gain antenna faces the earth (and approximately, faces the sun). Radio beam emissions directed inward toward the earth will act to push the craft outward. This is conservation of momentum, basic physics.

So here's the situation. We *expected* an outward acceleration of 0.9, and instead measured an *inward* acceleration of 7.84. The differences between these two, in a vector sense, is 8.74. They "add" because the measured vector is in the opposite direction from the expectation.

CM

.... i have to be in agreement with you , in some moments ..
...but i try again to understand : on the beginning , without the suspected anomaly , they observed like a deceleration of their ground clocks .. but the ground and in-rocket cloks were good .. is it so the history ? ... or like the rocket was sending a frequency , but this frequency was lower than the waited-one ... is it so ?

On Friday, June 9, 2017 at 5:40:00 AM UTC-4, wrote:
..but i try again to understand : on the beginning , without the suspected anomaly , they observed like a deceleration of their ground clocks .. but the ground and in-rocket cloks were good .. is it so the history ? ... or like the rocket was sending a frequency , but this frequency was lower than the waited-one ... is it so ?

Actually it's possible to see what navigators and analysts were thinking about at the time because they wrote about their concerns regularly and published it in a journal. It's called the DSN Progress Report, and all of the issues are online dating back to 1971 (just google for the term). They were thinking about clocks, yes, but also anything else that could bias the signal. Gas leaks in the propulsion system was a big concern, and were known to be active at some times early in the mission. Modeling of solar radiation pressure was a big deal and analysts were perfecting the process, but there was always the concern about the change in optical properties of the spacecraft coatings (darkening of white coatings), etc.

CM