Despite the initial announcement of the Dr. Everitt’s group regarding the polhode motion of the GPB gyros to be an electrostatic patch effect, there are many unsettling questions on the plausibility of such an interpretation. Just for the moment, let's assume that GP-B data was correct and there was no electrostatic patch effect or magnetic flux disturbances that might have caused such an elaborate gyroscopic motion. If we assume this to be the case, the interpretation of the polhode motion becomes rather simple. It is noted that the observed polhode motion is basically the same as the figure of the number eight.
The GP-B gyro experiences the reversal in the direction of the second order(dipole) gravity force which is oriented along the direction of the latitude angle during the motion of the space craft from the North Pole to the South Pole. As shown extensively in this blog, the half of the rotating sphere constitutes a gravitational magnet and therefore, the rotating sphere forms two gravitational magnets superposed in the opposite direction. Since the axis of the gyro points to the remote star, the magnitude of the force causing the precession changes along the 1/4th revolution of the craft like in a sine wave and then the force changes its direction after the craft crosses over the equator for the next 1/4th revolution up to the south pole.
On the other hand, the frame dragging force which is perpendicular to the motion of the space craft doesn't change its direction during the half cycle of the space craft's journey. Therefore, there is a 2 to 1 ratio of the period of the force influencing the precession of the gyro, i.e., the direction of the force on the gyro changes along the latitude angle(from zero to 180 degree) while the force along the direction of the motion of the surface of the earth doesn't change in the azimuthal direction in half of the revolution of the space craft around the path from the north to the south pole, in which case, the GPB gyro's precession has to be a 2 x 1 Lissajous Curve
In general, the Lissajous curve is not closed when the ratio of axb is not an integer multiple. The observed 2x1 closed Lissajous signature is very unique and it is hard to conceive that this type of precession can be caused by a random electrostatic patch effect. This analysis is rather qualitative; however, given the fact that the details of the raw data of the GPB experiment haven't been released, it will be one of the interesting preliminary interpretations of the GPB results. It is also noted, by observing the figure of the polhode motion, that the magnitude of the frame dragging force at the altitude of the space craft housing the gyro is about the same order of magnitude as the dipole gravitational force. If there were no dipole gravity, but only the frame dragging effect, the precession of the gyro would have been circular(effectively a 1x1 Lissajous Curve).
Now, after this analysis, going back to the initial electrostatic patch effect hypothesis, what will be the probability that the random electrostatic patch could precisely emulate the dipole gravity effect for all four gyros used in the experiment? This will have to be an astronomical coincidence. It will be equivalent to saying that the faces in the mount Rushmore was a result of a natural weather phenomenon. Besides, due to the enormous repulsive force among themselves, electrostatic charges rarely clump together in a constrained region on the smooth conducting surface of an object. On the other hand, the separation of the charges positive in half of the sphere and negative in other half of the sphere would be even more difficult to create. A few volts of the charges to suspend the sphere inside the housing would not be enough to do the job in such a magnitude to influence the gyro as observed in the GP-B experiment. If the surface of the object were spiky, charges may be able to cling together onto the tips of the spikes, which is not the case for the quartz gyros coated with the superconducting metal used in the GP-B experiment.
If the observed huge polhode motion of the gyro was a systematic error caused by the electrostatic patch effect, they are basically admitting that their experiment was a total failure from the beginning. There can be no proof of anything from their experiment. The signal to noise ratio is simply too outrageous. If they believe this effect was really caused by the electrostatic patch effect, it should have been predicted and corrected before the launch of the space craft or they simply do not know what kind of mess they are at, when they announced the polhode motion of the gyro was caused by the electrostatic patch effect, after spending 700 million dollars of tax payer's money in the project. They should have announced instead that "there is an unknown effect that is much larger than expected".
In summary, so far up to this qualitative data point, it looks like the GPB mission was not a failure. It looks more like it was a triumphant success only if they use the correct theory to compare their data with. The failure could be rather in the old school's misinterpretation of General Relativity on the subject of the gravitational dipole moment.
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Theory of Gravitation, Cosmology and a part of general relativity