On Jan 26, 9:53*am, Robert Clark wrote:
January 20th, 2008
A Possible Answer to Flyby Anomalies.
Written by Ian O'Neill
"Strange things are happening to our robotic space explorers. Also
known as the "Pioneer effect" (the unexpected and sudden alterations
to Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 trajectories measured as they continue
their journey into the outer solar system), similar anomalies are
being seen in flybys by modern space probes. Earth flybys by Galileo,
Rosetta, NEAR and Cassini have all experienced a sudden boost in
speed. After cancelling out all possible explanations, including
leakage of fuel and velocity measurement error, a new study suggests
the answer may lie in a bizarre characteristic of universal physics..."http://www.universetoday.com/2008/01/20/a-possible-answer-to-flyby-an...

Some years ago I speculated something like this might be observed on
close Earth flybys, but I thought the satellite motions would undergo
turbulence (aside from the atmospheric effects) because of the effects
of the quantum vacuum:

Newsgroups: sci.astro, sci.physics, sci.physics.relativity
From: "Robert Clark" rcl
Date: 1997/09/28
Subject: A test for 'Sakharov gravity'?http://groups.google.com/group/sci.p...hread/4bfea19e...

I called it "Sakharov gravity" because Sakharov speculated the effects
of gravity might be due to the "quantum vacuum". If you're *really*
interested you can read about it in the general relativity textbook
"Gravitation", by Wheeler, Misner, and Thorne. (You have to be really
interested because the book is a massive tome.)
To get a better idea on this would be to look at very low flybys
conducted close to the Moon with very accurate radar rangers placed on
the Moon's surface to look for deviations in the velocities.

* *Bob Clark

Far more credible explanations exist related to basic concepts of
classical mechanics.

Harry C.