The Viking Relativity Experiment

Abstract

Measurements of the round-trip time of flight of radio signals transmitted from the earth to the Viking spacecraft are being analyzed to test the predictions of Einstein's theory of general relativity. According to this theory the signals will be delayed by up to ∼250 μs owing to the direct effect of solar gravity on the propagation. A very preliminary qualitative analysis of the Viking data obtained near the 1976 superior conjunction of Mars indicates agreement with the predictions to within the estimated uncertainty of 0.5%.