Europe’s “Arrows to the Sun” – Two Gravity and Solar Probe Proposals from ESRO and ESA

P. Ulivi (2008), JBIS, 61, 98-112

Refcode: 2008.61.98
Keywords: ESRO, ESA, solar probe, general relativity, Giuseppe Colombo

Abstract:
During the 1970s, ESRO and ESA elaborated projects for quite complex missions to determine two ill-defined parameters required by General Relativity and other theories of gravitation, and to measure the oblateness of the Sun. The first mission would be a reflight of the Helios Sun probe carrying a sensitive accelerometer, laser transponder and other high sensitivity apparatus, while the second was a small perihelion solar probe that also spurred similar studies in the United States. Important contributions to both of these projects were made by the famed Italian space scientist Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo.