Abstract: The talk is devided into two parts: I will talk about the current status and the prospects of relativistic geodesy and a very interesting project related to this that is called „geoQ“. The second part is about satellite orbit deviations related to space based geodesy missions in the spirit of General Relativity. Within the theory of GR we study the solution and range of applicability of the standard geodesic deviation equation in highly symmetric spacetimes. The deviation equation is used to model satellite orbit constellations around the earth. In particular, we reconsider the deviation equation in Newtonian gravity and then determine relativistic effects within the theory of General Relativity. The deviation of nearby orbits, as constructed from exact solutions of the underlying geodesic equation, is compared to the solution of the geodesic deviation equation to assess the accuracy of the latter. Furthermore, we comment on the so-called Shirokov effect in Schwarzschild spacetime.
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This seminar is supported by Portuguese Funds through the CIDMA - Centre for Research and Development in Mathematics and Applications, and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology ("FCT" - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), within the project UID/MAT/04106/2013.
