Abstract

The 1976 Scout D rocket test with hydrogen masers revealed a gravitational blueshift attributable to general relativity and a secondary Doppler effect said to be attributable to special relativity, because it correlated with the relative velocity between rocket and reference Earth station, and not the velocities of spacecraft and Earth station separately. The analysis in this paper examines the prediction of the general relativity theory in more detail, and shows that the reported correlation of the secondary Doppler effect with the relative velocity between spacecraft and Earth station was due to the Doppler cancellation system employed ? and not, as reported, a manifestation of special relativity. The re-interpretation of the Scout D experiment has important implications for the interpretation of observations of electromagnetic radiation made between moving objects, and ultimately calls into question some of the basic assumptions of the special relativity theory.