According to general relativity, the gravitomagnetic Lense-Thirring force of Mars would secularly shift the orbital plane of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft by an amount of 1.5 m, on average, in the cross-track direction over 5 years. The determi

Figure1:Orbitoverlapdi erences(10February2000-14January2005)fortheout-of-planedirection(DataprovidedbyA.Konopliv,2006).Theaverageamountsto1.6m:theaverageLense-Thirringout-of-planeshift,overthesametimespan,is1.5m.

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