IT RANKS as one of the most jinxed missions in space history. So NASA engineers will breathe a sigh of relief if Gravity Probe B blasts off as planned on Monday.
The probe, which has taken 40 years to build, has faced endless delays. It was conceived in the 1960s with the aim of testing Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Using four gyroscopes about 4 centimetres across, GP-B will not only measure how much Earth’s gravity warps the fabric of space-time, but will also find out whether the Earth’s rotation drags space around as Einstein predicted.
It has been hailed…
