Spacecraft calorimetry as a test of the dark matter scattering model for flyby anomalies

Abstract

In previous papers we have shown that scattering of spacecraft nucleons from dark matter gravitationally bound to the earth gives a possible explanation of the flyby velocity anomalies. In addition to flyby velocity changes arising from the average over the scattering cross section of the collision-induced nucleon velocity change, there will be spacecraft temperature increases arising from the mean squared fluctuation of the collision-induced velocity change. We give here a quantitative treatment of this effect, and suggest that careful calorimetry on spacecraft traversing the region below 70,000 km where the flyby velocity changes take place could verify, or at a minimum place significant constraints, on the dark matter scattering model.

Comments: Latex, 7 pages; v1 also submitted in single spaced format as a white paper to the NAS decadal review on biological and physical sciences in space; v2 has corrections to Sec. III