Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Evans, D. D..
The Mars Observer Mission will deliver a single spacecraft to Mars for an extended orbital study of the planet's surface, atmosphere, and gravitational and magnetic fields. A flight profile is given, and information is presented in tabular form on the following topics: Deep Space Network support; compatibility tests, frequency assignments, telemetry, command, and tracking support responsibility.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is currently transferring satellite on-board autonomy technology to the USAF for use in military spacecraft as a means of lowering the ground support requirements. The techniques were proven on the Viking and Voyager spacecraft and permitted on-board fault detection and correction. New military satellites will incorporate an autonomous redundancy and maintenance management subsystem in an on-board computer, while the system will still be subject to ground-based safing commands for situations demanding deeper analyses. A level 5 autonomy will need 256 kb memory, 10 Mb nonvolatile data storage and 50 W power and will weigh 20 kg. Systems will be periodically checked and compared with an ideal in the data base. Deviations detected will result in a rollback and redundant examination by two microprocessors, which can initiate correction commands until operational criteria are met. The development of the expert systems to the point that they satisfy military specifications is expected to take 10 yr.
A March 1977 wave direction measurement experiment is reported in which four systems were used to provide offshore wave-direction information: (1) synthetic aperture radar (SAR), (2) a coastal imaging radar, (3) an offshore pressure-gage array, and (4) aerial photography. From the coastal radar images and aerial photographs, the direction and length of the principal wavetrains were measured by a manual analysis. The SAR images were processed using fast Fourier transform to give two-dimensional wave spectra. Scatter diagrams are presented which intercompare the measurements of all four systems, and show good agreement among all imaging systems. It is concluded that aerial photography and SAR will prove more useful when wave measurements are needed over a large area or when there are rapidly changing wave characteristics.
Spectral analyses of optical images of the ocean surface, obtained by a digital video system, are presented and compared with wave data measured simultaneously by the JPL Waverider-mounted laser slope meter. The image analyses, which incorporate several new ideas, provide two-dimensional wave number spectra of slope, covering wavelengths from 10 cm to 10 m. These slope spectra are converted to wave height spectra by a new technique which includes the effects of sky radiance gradients. Space-time spectra are also presented for waves whose frequencies are less than 2 Hz. The JPL slope frequency spectra are compared with image wave number spectra which have been converted to frequency spectra by use of the gravity wave dispersion relation. Results of comparisons between the frequency spectra obtained from the two different measurements show reasonable agreement for frequencies less than 3 Hz.
A preliminary investigation of the modulation of capillary and gravity waves by long ocean waves is described. A pressure transducer is used to obtain water surface displacements, and a high-response laser-optical system is used to detect short-wave slopes. Analytical techniques are developed to account for the orbital motion of long waves. The local mean squared wave slope is found to be maximum leeward of the long-wave crests. For the long waves studied here and for short waves from 1 cm to 1 m, the longer a short-wave component is, the more leeward its maximum tends to occur. Also, the shortest waves tend to modulate least. The modulation of short waves is found to be strong enough to be an important component of the synthetic aperture radar image formation mechanism for long ocean waves.
As part of NASA's continuing assessment of future communication satellite requirements, a study was conducted to quantitatively scope current and future telecommunication traffic demand in the South Pacific Archipelagos. This demand was then converted to equivalent satellite transponder capacities. Only inter-island telephony traffic for the Pacific Basin Region was included. The results show that if all this traffic were carried by a satellite system, one-third of a satellite transponder would be needed to satisfy the base-year (1976-1977) requirement and about two-thirds of a satellite transponder would be needed to satisfy the forecasted 1985 requirement.
The primary Voyager Project objective is to extend the exploration of the solar system to the neighborhood of Jupiter and Saturn with a spacecraft that can conduct scientific experiments at both planetary systems and pave the way for later missions to the outer planets. The development and in-flight performance of the Voyager propulsion system are described. Emphasis is placed on the unique features of this system and on the solution to several problems encountered in its development. Over the past 20-month flight, the propulsion systems on Voyager I and Voyager II have exhibited excellent performance without failures.
A running swell affects the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery of ships, smaller icebergs, and other floating objects because the targets signal is no longer matched with the azimuth processor. This effect is analyzed analytically and numerically for the case of conventional image processing.
The relationship between synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery of ocean waves and the ocean surface structure is discussed. The effects of ocean surface motion on SAR images is given. A generalization of conventional SAR correlation techniques is developed to provide imagery with the minimum possible degradation and distortion. The modeling of such imagery is discussed and an analytically tractable example given. Ongoing work towards the determination of the relevant components of surface microstructure is described. The future use of SAR phase information to supplement information obtainable from SAR imagery is suggested.
Reflection coefficients are found at normal incidence for a large class of homogeneous lossy half-spaces with a one-dimensionally inhomogeneous or stratified lossy layer on top. Solutions are in terms of Hankel functions of complex argument to decrease cancellation error at high frequencies. One special case is that of layers on a homogeneous half-space where the dielectric constant in each layer may vary in a quite general manner. A Wronskian is used to insure the critical computations are correct. The reflection of chirped pulses is considered. Solutions are obtained by applying the fast Fourier transform. It is found that for a typical relatively long normalized 'long' pulse the power reflected as a function of time is essentially the power reflection coefficient for the frequencies swept out, whereas for a relatively short 'long' pulse, with the same relative change in frequency and the same number of oscillations there is only the uniform attenuation by the power reflection coefficient of the center frequency. By a 'long' pulse we mean a pulse whose spatial length is long compared to the thickness of the reflecting layer.
The effects of Gaussian random fluctuation and linear change of the echo phase on the response of the azimuth matched processor of a synthetic aperture radar (airborne or spaceborne for ocean-surface sensing) is analyzed numerically. It is found that the random fluctuation would not alter appreciably the processor response if its standard deviation is less than pi, while its normalized correlation time is larger than 1. If these two bounding conditions are not satisfied, then the sidelobe level becomes relatively large and overshadows the central peak. In the case of linear displacement it is found that the main effect is the spatial displacement of the point scatterer in the image plane.
The reflection coefficients at normal incidence are found for a large class of one-dimensionally inhomogeneous or stratified half-spaces, which contain a homogeneous half-space. The formulation of the problem involves a combination of the classical boundary value technique, and the nonclassical principle of invariant imbedding. Solutions are in closed form and expressible in terms of Bessel functions. All results are given in terms of the ratio of the distance between free space and the homogeneous half-space to the wavelength in vacuo. One special case is that of an arbitrary number of layers lying on a homogeneous half-space where the dielectric constant of each layer has a constant gradient. A number of other special cases, limiting cases, and generalizations are developed including one in which the thickness of the top layer obeys a probability distribution.
On November 14, 1971, Mariner 9 was decelerated into orbit about Mars by a 1334 N (300 lbf) liquid bipropellant propulsion system. This paper describes and summarizes the development and in-flight performance of this pressure-fed, nitrogen tetroxide/monomethyl hydrazine bipropellant system. The design of all Mariner propulsion subsystems has been predicted upon the premise that simplicity of approach, coupled with thorough qualification and margin-limits testing, is the key to cost-effective reliability. The qualification test program and analytical modeling are also discussed. Since the propulsion subsystem is modular in nature, it was completely checked, serviced, and tested independent of the spacecraft. Proper prediction of in-flight performance required the development of three significant modeling tools to predict and account for nitrogen saturation of the propellant during the six-month coast period and to predict and statistically analyze in-flight data.
On November 14, 1971, Mariner 9 was decelerated into orbit about Mars by a 1334-newton (300-lbf) liquid bipropellant propulsion system. The development and in-flight performance are described and summarized of this pressure-fed, nitrogen tetroxide/monomethyl hydrazine bipropellant system. The design of all Mariner propulsion subsystems has been predicated upon the premise that simplicity of approach, coupled with thorough qualification and margin-limits testing, is the key to cost-effective reliability. The qualification test program and analytical modeling of the Mariner 9 subsystem are discussed. Since the propulsion subsystem is modular in nature, it was completely checked, serviced, and tested independent of the spacecraft. Proper prediction of in-flight performance required the development of three significant modeling tools to predict and account for nitrogen saturation of the propellant during the six-month coast period and to predict and statistically analyze in-flight data. The flight performance of the subsystem was excellent, as were the performance prediction correlations. These correlations are presented.
Computer program, using only group elements as input data, provides machine computation of group tables used for proving theorems and algorithms of finite groups. Program is written for second generation computers.
FORTRAN program for computation of group tables, alphanumeric display
FORTRAN 4 program for second generation machines for computing group tables of finite groups
FORTRAN program for computation of finite group tables