>Yes, now that the mission is over, the spacecraft is doomed to remain in its orbit as a piece of space junk. As far as I know, there are no plans to retrieve the spacecraft, or to use it in any other missions.
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>The important assess now is the information contained in the data that was captured during the mission. The data must be thoroughly analyzed. It will take another 18 months, or so, before the Gravity Probe B findings are officially released, which would make a offical relase date of the findings around April 2007. Do you think Einstein's theory of frame dragging will be confirmed?
I think it is very likely, since other aspects of the Special, and General, Theory of Relativity, have also been confirmed. Somewhere I read that frame-dragging may already have been observed around black holes - the effect of the assumed frame-dragging should be stronger close to large and quickly-rotating masses but I assume they wanted to have a controlled environment.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)