drag free satellites was stephen hawking tours jpl in article raee b s access digex net prb access digex com pat writes in article apr kelvin jpl nasa gov baalke kelvin jpl nasa gov ron baalke writes in answer to a question from hawking chahine described a proposed drag free satellite but confirmed that at this point it s only a concept so what s a drag free satellite coated with wd i am puzzled by the term concept drag free may already have been flown it was the idea behind putting up a spacecraft that would more accurately respond to motions from the earth s gravity field and ignore drag it was proposed many years ago and involved a ball floating between sensors whose job it was to signal to little adjustment jets to keep the ball away from them the ball itself would then be in a drag free condition and respond only to gravity anisotropies whereas the spacecraft itself would be continuously adjusting its position to compensate for drag joseph cain cain geomag gly fsu edu cain fsu bitnet scri cain fax or
