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Dooley, Jennifer

Publications and source records attributed to Dooley, Jennifer.

Europa Clipper Mission: System Integration Review Report

Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is a prime target in our exploration of potentially habitable worlds beyond Earth. The combination of a subsurface liquid water layer in contact with a rocky seafloor may yield an ocean rich in the elements and energy needed for the emergence of life, and for potentially sustaining life through time. Europa may hold the clues to one of NASA’s long-standing quests – to determine whether or not we are alone in the universe. The Europa Clipper mission will characterize Europa’s habitability as the first step in the search for potential life at Europa by conducting approximately four dozen flybys. The project is preparing for a System Integration Review in November of 2021. This paper will summarize changes from the mission’s Preliminary Design Review (PDR) baseline, including science objectives, launch vehicle, interplanetary trajectory, science tour, flight system, payload and mission phases. Since PDR several of the Level 1 science requirements were descoped and the science requirement flow was realigned, in order to control cost growth. The realignment deemphasized science redundancy, which had resulted in an over-constrained science tour, in favor of a more targeted linkage to the primary responding instrument. Additionally, changes to the PDR flight system design baseline include changes to the sounding radar antenna design, the magnetometer architecture, and the heat redistribution system pumps. All changes have been incorporated into a reference science tour used to demonstrate that the requirements and design of the flight system and payload are mature enough to support flight builds.

Cook, Kendra↗

Europa

No abstract provided

Dooley, Jennifer↗

Mission Concept for a Europa Lander

A NASA HQ-directed study team led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) with partners including Applied Physics Lab, Marshall Space Flight Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, Langley Research Center and Sandia National Laboratory has recently presented a mission concept for a Europa Lander that would search for bio-signatures and signs of life in the near-subsurface of the Jovian moon. The mission would follow the Europa Clipper multiple-flyby mission, planned for launch in June of 2022, which would provide reconnaissance imagery and other data to the Lander for use in selecting a scientifically compelling site and certifying it for engineering safety. The Europa Lander concept accommodates the Model Payload identified by the Europa Lander Science Definition Team (SDT) and documented in the Europa Lander Study 2016 Report released in February of 2017. The currently envisioned Europa Lander would launch on an SLS Block 1B as early as October of 2025 into a VEGA trajectory, arriving in the Jovian system as early as July of 2030. The baseline design of the integrated flight system includes a dedicated Carrier and Relay Stage, a Deorbit Vehicle composed of a Deorbit Stage consisting of a solid rocket motor (SRM), an MSL-like sky-crane Descent Stage, and a Lander which accommodates the instrument suite. The Lander would be powered by primary batteries over a 20-day surface mission. The science goals envisioned by the SDT require five samples taken from a depth of 10cm, a depth chosen to ensure minimal radiation processing of the potential biomarkers. Mission challenges include the large launch mass, unknown terrain topography, surface composition and materials properties, the high radiation environment, and complying with stringent planetary protection requirements. The mission concept uses a strategy of early risk reduction and overlapping requirements to provide robustness to harsh and uncertain environments. Early risk reduction efforts are aimed at maturing technologies associated with the sampling system, the intelligent landing system, high specific energy batteries, low mass and power motor controllers, and a thermal sterilization system.

Dooley, Jennifer↗

Nanolaminate Membranes as Cylindrical Telescope Reflectors

A document discusses a proposal to use axially stretched metal nanolaminate membranes as lightweight parabolic cylindrical reflectors in the Dual Anamorphic Reflector Telescope (DART) - a planned spaceborne telescope in which the cylindrical reflectors would be arranged to obtain a point focus. The discussion brings together a combination of concepts reported separately in several prior NASA Tech Briefs articles, the most relevant being "Nanolaminate Mirrors With Integral Figure-Control Actuators" NPO -30221, Vol. 26, No. 5 (May 2002), page 90; and "Reflectors Made From Membranes Stretched Between Beams" NPO -30571, Vol. 33, No. 10 (October 2009), page 11a. The engineering issues receiving the greatest emphasis in the instant document are (1) the change in curvature associated with the Poisson contraction of a stretched nanolaminate reflector membrane and (2) the feasibility of using patches of poly(vinylidene fluoride) on the rear membrane surface as piezoelectric actuators to correct the surface figure for the effect of Poisson contraction and other shape errors.

Dooley, Jennifer↗

Reflectors Made from Membranes Stretched Between Beams

Lightweight cylindrical reflectors of a proposed type would be made from reflective membranes stretched between pairs of identically curved and identically oriented end rails. In each such reflector, the curvature of the two beams would define the reflector shape required for the intended application. For example, the beams could be curved to define a reflector of parabolic cross section, so that light incident along the axis of symmetry perpendicular to the cylindrical axis would be focused to a line. In addition, by applying suitable forces to the ends of the beams, one could bend the beams to adjust the reflector surface figure to within a precision of the order of the wavelength of the radiation to be reflected. The figure depicts an example of beams shaped so that in the absence of applied forces, each would be flat on one side and would have a radius of curvature R on the opposite side. Alternatively, the curvature of the reflector-membrane side could be other than circular. In general, the initial curvature would be chosen to optimize the final reflector shape. Then by applying forces F between the beam ends in the positions and orientations shown in the figure, one could bend beams to adjust their shape to a closer approximation of the desired precise circular or noncircular curvature.

Dooley, Jennifer↗

Fabrication of Spherical Reflectors in Outer Space

A process is proposed for fabrication of lightweight spherical reflectors in outer space for telescopes, radio antennas, and light collectors that would be operated there. The process would obviate the relatively massive substrates and frames needed to support such reflectors in normal Earth gravitation. According to the proposal, fabrication of a reflector would begin with blowing of a bubble to the specified reflector radius. Taking advantage of the outer-space vacuum as a suitable environment for evaporative deposition of metal, a metal-evaporation source would be turned on and moved around the bubble to deposit a reflective metal film over the specified reflector area to a thickness of several microns. Then the source would be moved and aimed to deposit more metal around the edge of the reflector area, increasing the thickness there to approximately equal to 100 micron to form a frame. Then the bubble would be deflated and peeled off the metal, leaving a thin-film spherical mirror having an integral frame. The mirror would then be mounted for use. The feasibility of this technology has been proved by fabricating a prototype at JPL. As shown in the figure, a 2-in. (.5-cm) diameter hemispherical prototype reflector was made from a polymer bubble coated with silver, forming a very smooth surface.

Wang, Yu↗

Thermal design trades for SAFIR architecture concepts

SAFIR is a IO-meter, 4 K space telescope optimized for wavelengths between 20 microns and 1 mm. The combination of aperture diameter and telescope temperature will provide a raw sensitivity improvement of more than a factor of 1000 over presently-planned missions. The sensitivity will be comparable to that of the JWST and ALMA, but at the critical far-IR wavelengths where much of the universe's radiative energy has emerged since the origin of stars and galaxies. We examine several of the critical technologies for SAFIR which enable the large cold aperture, and present results of studies examining the telescope optics and the spacecraft thermal architecture. Both the method by which the aperture is filled, and the overall optical design for the telescope can impact the potential scientific return of SAFIR. Thermal architecture that goes far beyond the sunshades developed for the James Webb Space Telescope will be necessary to achieve the desired sensitivity of SAFIR. By combining active and passive cooling at critical points within the observatory, a significant reduction of the required level of active cooling can be obtained.

infrared telescopes↗

The DART Cylindrical, Infrared, 1 Meter Membrane Reflector

The Dual Anamorphic Reflector Telescopes (DART) is an architecture for large aperture space telescopes that enables the use of membranes. A membrane can be readily shaped in one direction of curvature using a combination of boundary control and tensioning, yielding a cylindrical reflector. Two cylindrical reflectors (orthogonal and confocal) comprise the 'primary mirror' of the telescope system. The aperture is completely unobstructed and ideal for infrared and high contrast observations.

anamorphic↗