Relativity time-delay experiments utilizing 'Mariner' spacecraft

Abstract

Relativity predicts that the transit time of a signal propagated from the earth to a spacecraft and retransmitted back to earth ought to exhibit an additional, variable time delay. The present work describes some of the analytical techniques employed in experiments using Mariner spacecraft designed to test the accuracy of this prediction. Two types of data are analyzed in these relativity experiments; these include phase-coherent, two-way Doppler shift and round-trip, transit-time measurements. Results of Mariner 6 and 7 relativistic time-delay experiments are in agreement with Einstein's theory of general relativity with an uncertainty of 3%.