Spacecraft design impacts on the post-Newtonian parameter estimation

The ESA mission BepiColombo, reaching out to explore the elusive planet Mercury, features unprecedented tracking techniques. The highly precise orbit determination around Mercury is a compelling opportunity for a modern test of General Relativity (GR). Using the software tool GRETCHEN incorporating the Square Root Information Filter (SRIF), MPO's orbit is simulated and the post-Newtonian parameters (PNP) are estimated. In this work, the influence of a specific constraint of the Mercury Orbiter Radio science Experiment (MORE) on the achievable accuracy of the PNP estimates is investigated. The power system design of the spacecraft requires that 35 around perihelion the Ka transponder needs to be switched off, thus radiometric data is only gathered via X band. This analysis shows the impact of this constraint on the achievable accuracy of PNP estimates. On a bigger scale, if GR shows some violation at a detectable level it inevitably leads to its invalidation.