万有库仑力是由于系统角动量变化引起的相互作用。宇观系统论用万有库仑力的定义式精确地推导出粒子之间的库仑力公式，并发明了用库仑力从内部推动物体的新方法(专利申请号：200410059114X)，同时预言了万有库仑力的普遍存在，所以，虽然GP-B的整体转速只有0.7742转/分，但它已经表现出非常轻微的万有库仑力的作用。这种万有库仑力正是困扰GB-B科学家们的不明的力。

好戏还在后头，GP-B上的四个陀螺的频率高达几十Hz，它们之间的万有库仑力将有较大的表现，并且能从本质上影响GP-B上四个陀螺的轴向偏离，这就是我说GP-B上的陀螺轴偏离结果将远远大于预期结果的原因。

虽然《自然系统的物理学原理》一书中有万有库仑力的准确的公式，但这里是我第一次公开万有库仑力影响GP-B的预言。

让我们试目以待!

WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS FOR 3 SEPTEMBER 2004:
GRAVITY PROBE B MISSION UPDATE
 
As of Day #136, GP-B has successfully completed its first full week in the Science Phase of the mission, with gyros #1, #2, and #3 in science mode. Gyro #4 is still undergoing alignment of its spin axis, which we expect to be completed in about a week. For the past week, the spacecraft has been in drag-free mode around gyro #3.

The spacecraft remains in excellent health, rolling at a rate of 0.7742 rpm, with all subsystems performing well. The telescope continues properly tracking the guide star, IM Pegasi, during the portion of each orbit when the guide star is visible. We are still investigating a small force or bias along the roll axis of the spacecraft, but this bias has no effect on science data collection. Moreover, during the past two weeks, we have tuned the spacecraft’s Attitude and Translation Control (ATC) system to compensate for this bias, with no excess expenditure of helium through the micro thrusters.

Having just achieved the major milestone of transitioning into the Science Phase of the mission, this is a good time to pause and look back over the Initialization and Orbit Checkout (IOC) phase of the mission. During this 9-week period, the GP-B mission has already achieved a number of extraordinary accomplishments:

The orbit injection of the spacecraft was so close to perfect (within 6 meters of the target orbit plane) that none of the planned orbit trim operations were necessary.

We’ve communicated with the spacecraft over 3,000 times during the IOC phase, and the Mission Planning team has successfully transmitted over 70,000 commands to the spacecraft without an error.

GP-B is the first satellite ever to achieve both 3-axis attitude control (pitch, yaw, and roll), and 3-axis drag-free control. Essentially, while orbiting the Earth, the whole spacecraft flies around one of the science gyros.

The GP-B gyros, which are performing perfectly in orbit, will be listed in the forthcoming edition of the Guinness Book of World Records as being the roundest objects ever manufactured.

The spin-down rates of all four gyros are considerably better than expected. GP-B’s conservative requirement was a characteristic spin-down period (time required to slow down to ~37% of its initial speed) of 2,300 years. Recent measurements show that the actual characteristic spin-down period of the GP-B gyros exceeds 10,000 years—well beyond the requirement.

Once tuned up, the spacecraft’s Attitude and Translation Control (ATC) system has been able to function at a spacecraft roll rate of 0.7742 rpm—more than twice the roll rate of 0.3 rpm initially specified.

The magnetic field surrounding the gyros and SQUIDs (Super-conducting QUantum Interference Device) has been reduced to 0.0000001 gauss, less than one millionth of the Earth’s magnetic field—the lowest ever achieved in space.

The gyro readout measurements from the SQUID magnetometers have unprecedented precision, detecting fields to 0.0000000000001 gauss, less than one trillionth of the strength of Earth’s magnetic field.

The science telescope on board the spacecraft is tracking the guide star, IM Pegasi (HR 8703), to superb accuracy, and it is also collecting long-term brightness data on that star.

A number of people have asked the following two-part question about GP-B: “Given that our gyros are spinning about half as fast as we originally anticipated, and that the IOC phase took about twice as long as originally anticipated, how will these two situations affect the success of the GP-B experiment?”

Regarding the gyros, several of the accomplishments above—especially the extremely low SQUID noise and higher than planned spacecraft roll rate—have effectively reduced the error factor in the GP-B science experiment, thereby partially compensating for the reduced spin rates of the gyros.

Regarding the extended length of the IOC phase, the GP-B mission is unique because it is truly a physics experiment in space. As such, there are trade-offs that can be made. The primary trade-off we had to wrestle with was: More optimization/calibration of the instrument prior to entering science, with a shorter data collection period; or, less optimization/calibration, with a longer data collection period. We concluded that the best overall accuracy would be achieved by ensuring that the science instrument was optimally calibrated from the start, even if this meant collecting data for a shorter period than we had hoped. And, in fact, we now have a considerably better understanding of the instrument than originally anticipated at this stage of the mission.

The original ideal duration of the experiment was 13 months of relativity data gathering, but this is not essential, especially in view of the work we have now done on the optimization/calibration phase. After two months of science data collection, we can make a very good measurement of the geodetic effect and a significant measurement of the frame-dragging effect. The data improves as the 3/2 power of the time (i.e. double the time, and the result will improve by a factor of ~3). In the near future, we will make another measurement of the residual helium in the Dewar, which will provide an accurate determination of its cryogenic lifetime. This, in combination with the observed instrument performance, will indicate the final expected accuracy of the experiment.

The GP-B program will not release the scientific results obtained during the mission until after the science phase has concluded. It is critically important to thoroughly analyze the data to ensure its accuracy and integrity prior to releasing the results. After more than 40 years of development, we have learned the value of thoroughness and patience.