The Quest to Understand the Pioneer Anomaly

I perform an independent analysis of radio Doppler tracking data from the Pioneer 10 spacecraft for the time period 1987-1994. All of the tracking data were taken from public archive sources, and the analysis tools were developed independently by myself. I confirm that an apparent anomalous acceleration is acting on the Pioneer 10 spacecraft, which is not accounted for by present physical models of spacecraft navigation. My best fit value for the acceleration, including corre...

The Doppler-tracking data of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft show an unmodelled constant acceleration in the direction of the inner Solar System. An overview of the phenomenon, commonly dubbed the Pioneer anomaly, is given and the possibility for an experimental test of the anomaly as a secondary goal of an upcoming space mission is discussed using a putative Pluto orbiter probe as a paradigm.

We explore the possibility that the observed onset of the Pioneer anomaly after Saturn encounter by Pioneer 11 is not necessarily due to mismodeling of solar radiation pressure but instead reflects a physically relevant characteristic of the anomaly itself. We employ the principles of a recently proposed cosmological model termed "the theory of inertial centers" along with an understanding of the fundamental assumptions taken by the Deep Space Network (DSN) to attempt to mode...

NASA's first two deep space missions, Pioneers 10 and 11, have been travelling through the outer solar system for three decades. A slight deviation from their calculated trajectories presents an as yet unsolved scientific mystery. The use of recently recovered Doppler and telemetry data may help us develop a better understanding of this anomaly, and decide whether or not it is due to a force of on-board origin.

Launched more than thirty years ago and now drifting in space with no further contact, the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft are currently at the center of a small but developing concern: are they under the influence of an anomalous acceleration that reflects new, yet unknown physics, or merely experiencing some unexpected technical problem ? The proposals vary from basic engineering principles to extra spatial dimensions, but most probably an answer can only be obtained after a d...

Analysis of the radio tracking data from the Pioneer 10/11 spacecraft has consistently indicated the presence of an anomalous small Doppler frequency drift. The drift can be interpreted as being due to a constant acceleration of a_P= (8.74 +/- 1.33) x 10^{-8} cm/s^2 directed towards the Sun. Although it is suspected that there is a systematic origin to the effect, none has been found. The nature of this anomaly has become of growing interest in the fields of relativistic cosm...

In this paper an explanation of the Pioneer anomaly is given, using the hypothesis of the time dependent gravitational potential. The implications of this hypothesis on the planetary orbits and orbital periods are given in section 2. In sections 3 and 4 we give a detailed explanation of the Pioneer anomaly, which corresponds to the observed phenomena.

Some features of the Pioneer anomaly are discussed in context of author's explanation of this effect as a deceleration of the probes in the graviton background. It is noted that if the model is true then the best parameter of the anomalous acceleration should be not the distance to the Sun but a cosine of the angle between a velocity of the probe and its radius-vector.

Turyshev, S.G., Toth, V.T., 2009. (preprint arXiv:0906.0399) reported on the status of the analysis of recently recovered Pioneer 10 (P10) and Pioneer 11 (P11) flight data and commented on some, but not all, of the characteristics of the Pioneer Anomaly (PA) that must be explained by a candidate model. Only one model presented to date is consistent with all the characteristics.

The Pioneer anomaly is a small sunward anomalous acceleration found in the trajectory analysis of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. As part of the investigation of the effect, analysis of recently recovered Doppler data for both spacecraft has been completed. The presence of a small anomalous acceleration is confirmed using data spans more than twice as long as those that were previously analyzed. We examine the constancy and direction of the Pioneer anomaly, and conclude tha...