Abstract
In 1974 R. A. Van Patten and C. W. F. Everitt proposed an experiment to measure the Lense-Thirring effect of general relativity to about 1.1% in 2.5 yr. Satellite-to-satellite Doppler slant range measurements (made over the Earth's poles as the satellites pass) must be processed to separate the relativistic and non-relativistic effects on orbit plane nodal precessions. Using the results of a recent covariance analysis, it is shown that this can be done with sufficient accuracy to permit a change in the mission error estimate to about 0.7%. The satellite-to-satellite ranging measurements also yield new information about tesseral harmonic and Earth tidal orbit perturbations.
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