The Flyby Pattern, Priced: One Rotation Constant Cannot Carry Eight Events
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The Earth flyby anomaly is a set of small, stubborn numbers: changes in asymptotic velocity $\Delta v_\infty$, at the mm/s level, reported for six Earth gravity assists between 1990 and 2005 — and null results for the two later assists, Rosetta 2009 and Juno 2013, that were tracked precisely to test the pattern. Anderson et al. (2008) fitted the six with an empirical formula built entirely from Earth's rotation geometry, $\Delta v_\infty / v_\infty = K(\cos\delta_i - \cos\delta_o)$ with $K = 2\omega_E R_E / c$. Rotation coupling is this house's native language — its Einstein–Cartan frame couples spin to torsion, and its galactic program lives on rotation — so the flyby pattern is the one satellite anomaly that points at the frame's home mechanism, and it must be evaluated, not admired. This paper does the evaluation three ways. First, what the frame itself, unmodified, predicts: **nothing at mm/s level** — Einstein–Cartan torsion is a contact term that vanishes for an unpolarised spacecraft in vacuum, and the metric sector's genuine rotation coupling, frame-dragging, delivers an estimated $\sim 5 \times 10^{-4}$ mm/s, four to five orders below the smallest positive event. Second, the parametric value: treating the Anderson geometry factor as given and letting one dimensionless coupling $A$ float, each event demands its own $A$; the six early events cluster near $A \approx 3 \times 10^{-6}$ but the two nulls demand $A \approx 0$ — Juno alone caps $|A| \le 0.39 \times 10^{-6}$ at 1σ (and $\le 1.17 \times 10^{-6}$ even at 3σ), a factor of **8 below** the $3.14 \times 10^{-6}$ that NEAR requires, with the intervals disjoint at 1σ and at 3σ alike. Third, the verdict: **Verdict, at full size: NO SINGLE ROTATION COUPLING IN THIS CHANNEL CARRIES THE EIGHT EVENTS. The house frame predicts the nulls and does not produce the positives; a phenomenological constant fitted to the positives is killed by Juno; and the flyby anomaly, whatever it is, is not a rotation-coupled force of the form the frame — or Anderson's formula — can supply. The coupling in this channel is priced to zero, and this paper is the price tag.** ---
Author: Aldred, William Alexander
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225322821