EDUPA: The Flyby anomaly

The Problem:
The flyby anomaly represents an increase in energy due to the passing of spacecraft above the earth. This essentially corresponds to an increase in velocity at the perigee of a spacecrafts orbit where one wouldn't expect it. The fact that this shift occurs means that there is some unexpected added force in the gravitational field of the earth.

The Physics:
This directly relates to orbital mechanics of non-bound objects within earth's orbit. This problem has direct applications to classical mechanics (Keppler's Laws) as well as to electromagnetic principles (perhaps a magnetic field is responsible). From the few increases which have been seen, one group publicised the following equation:

which corresponds to the observed shift in gravity as we have collected existing data.

Why does it matter?
 As with the corona effect, it appears that we are getting energy from an unknown source, which represents either a gap in our knowledge of earths orbit, or a new step forward in classical mechanics theory. This has potential results in dark matter theory, general relativity, and gravity theory. The monitoring of these effects might provide valuable insight into some of the biggest problems faced by physicists, but offer a chance for us to study it up close.

Who is going to solve it?
There will actually be an Earth flyby this month by the Hayabusa 2, which was launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency a few years back. They will be closely monitoring the satellite's return, and gathering data on the flyby anomaly. There will not be another flyby until 2018, but the implications of the impact here might be important data in furthering this information.

What I think:I am convinced that we do not know enough about the way gravity works to perfectly account for every celestial effect that we observe: even close to earth. I think that there is clearly some amount of gravity which we are failing to account for during these orbits. Or dark matter halos. But only because I want to believe that one could be accounted for and observed so close to earth.