Engineering topics

Gail, William B.

Publications and source records attributed to Gail, William B..

2 records

NASA NTRS1993

Advanced antennas for SAR spacecraft

Single and multi-frequency antenna concepts were developed to evaluate the feasibility of building large aperture polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems to be launched in low cost vehicles such as the Delta 2. The antennas are 18.9 m long by 2.6 m wide (L-band) and achieve single polarization imaging to an incidence angle of 55 degrees and dual/quad imaging to 42 degrees. When combined with strawman spacecraft designs, both concepts meet the mass and volume constraints imposed by a Delta 2 launch.

Gail, William B.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Theory of electromagnetic cyclotron wave growth in a time-varying magnetoplasma

The effect of a time-dependent perturbation in the magnetoplasma on the wave and particle populations is investigated using the Kennel-Petchek (1966) approach. Perturbations in the cold plasma density, energetic particle distribution, and resonance condition are calculated on the basis of the ideal MHD assumption given an arbitrary compressional magnetic field perturbation. An equation is derived describing the time-dependent growth rate for parallel propagating electromagnetic cyclotron waves in a time-varying magnetoplasma with perturbations superimposed on an equilibrium configuration.

Gail, William B.↗