Modelling the reflective thermal contribution to the acceleration of the Pioneer spacecraft

We present an improved method to compute the radiative momentum transfer in the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft that takes into account both diffusive and specular reflection. The method allows for more reliable results regarding the thermal acceleration of the deep-space probes, confirming previous findings. A parametric analysis is performed in order to set upper and lower bounds for the thermal acceleration and its evolution with time. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.