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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 253 records · Page 14
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NASA NTRS1984

Development and flight test of a helicopter compact, portable, precision landing system concept

An airborne, radar-based, precision approach concept is being developed and flight tested as a part of NASA's Rotorcraft All-Weather Operations Research Program. A transponder-based beacon landing system (BLS) applying state-of-the-art X-band radar technology and digital processing techniques, was built and is being flight tested to demonstrate the concept feasibility. The BLS airborne hardware consists of an add-on microprocessor, installed in conjunction with the aircraft weather/mapping radar, which analyzes the radar beacon receiver returns and determines range, localizer deviation, and glide-slope deviation. The ground station is an inexpensive, portable unit which can be quickly deployed at a landing site. Results from the flight test program show that the BLS concept has a significant potential for providing rotorcraft with low-cost, precision instrument approach capability in remote areas.

Clary, G. R.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Effect of RF Filtering on the Performance of Uncoded PCM/PM Telemetry Channels

A method for calculating the increase in received telemetry signal power required to compensate for the use of a radio frequency interference (RFI) filter in front of the DSN receiving system low-noise amplifier is described. The telemetry system for which the degradation is calculated is an uncoded PCM/PM system in which the NRZ data directly modulates the carrier at a modulation level which leaves a discrete carrier. A phase-locked loop in the RF receiver tracks the discrete carrier and coherently demodulates the PCM data. The RFI filter may be a series of Butterworth, Tchebychev, or Bessel low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, or band-reject filters, each with arbitrary bandwidth, number of poles, and, for band-pass or band-reject filters, resonant frequency. The only restriction is that the RFI filter must have only simple poles. Numerical results are presented for the RFI filters the DSN plans to place in front of the S-band FET, S-band maser, and X-band maser low noise amplifiers. The main conclusion is that the filters will produce negligible degradation at data rates below 4 Mbps.

Koerner, M. A.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Potential Surface Improvements by Bump Removal for 64-m Antenna

The surface panels of the main reflector of the 64-m antenna are initially set at an elevation angle of 45 deg, where most tracking occurs, to ideally match a prescribed praboloid. As the antenna is rotated about the elevation axis, distortions are introduced at the surface panel's supporting nodes as well as at the main reflector backup structure by changes in the direction of the gravity forces relative to the reflector symmetric axis. Major bump displacements could be corrected by controlling the position of the surface panel corners using adjustable mechanical jacks that change in length with the antenna elevation angle. The analysis of two bump-removal configurations is presented and one unique adjustment mechanism is proposed. A gain recovery of 0.2 dB at X-band would be available if the reflector structure distortion rms were reduced from 0.63 mm (0.025 in.) to 0.15 mm (0.006 in.).

Katow, S.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Parametric analysis of synthetic aperture radar data acquired over truck garden vegetation

An airborne X-band SAR acquired multipolarization and multiflight pass SAR images over a truck garden vegetation area. Based on a variety of land cover and row crop direction variations, the vertical (VV) polarization data contain the highest contrast, while cross polarization contains the least. When the radar flight path is parallel to the row direction, both horizontal (HH) and VV polarization data contain very high return which masks out the specific land cover that forms the row structure. Cross polarization data are not that sensitive to row orientation. The inclusion of like and cross polarization data help delineate special surface features (e.g., row crop against non-row-oriented land cover, very-rough-surface against highly row-oriented surface).

Wu, S. T.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Multisensor data analysis and its application to monitoring of cropland, forest, strip mines and cultural targets

Seasat L-band and aircraft X-band dual polarized synthetic aperture (SAR) data of the Western Kentucky Coal Region were examined, preprocessed and combined with Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) data to form a seven-band multisensor data set. Analysis of classified data sets show that the three-band SAR data contain moderate discrimination accuracy for the strip mine class but low accuracy for the residential class. The four-band MSS data contain low classification accuracy for the strip mine and residential classes. The integrated five-band SAR/MSS data show that significant improvement in classification accuracy is obtained for both strip mine and residential classes.

Wu, S. T.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Comet rendezvous

A Mariner Mark II spacecraft rendezvous mission with comet Kopff has been recommended by NASA's Solar System Exploration Committee, and is scheduled for a Shuttle launch in 1990. The spacecraft, which is scheduled to encounter the comet in 1994, will conduct a series of experiments including the study of the cometary nucleus, coma, and tail during perihelion passage; the determination of the nucleus and coma chemical/isotropic composition; the description of the nucleus's size, mass, rotation period, and pole occultation; distinctions of gas and dust hydrodynamics; and distinctions of solar wind interactions with the coma. The three-axis-stabilized spacecraft will be modular in design, and will incorporate a 490-Newton Insat engine, Viking Orbiter propulsion tanks, an Integrated Platform Pointing and Attitude Control Subsystem, and several scientific instruments. The spacecraft's Radio Frequency Subsystem will only use X-band telemetry with a downlink frequency of 8415 MHz, and an uplink frequency of 7161 MHz. The power sources in the present design include one radioisotope thermoelectric generator, three 3 Ah batteries, and a solar panel of approximately 7 sq m.

Draper, R. F.↗
NASA NTRS1984

A comparison of IMPATT oscillator power and frequency above 100 GHz with results derived from theoretical models

This investigation is concerned with a comparison of measured 117-GHz IMPATT oscillator frequency and output power with results derived from theoretical circuit models. It is pointed out that previous millimeter-wave oscillator models are unsuitable for studying circuit behavior, such as oscillator tuning as a function of waveguide short position or other circuit parameters. In the current study, oscillator circuit modeling techniques, successfully applied at X-band, are applied for the first time to a millimeter-wave IMPATT oscillator circuit. Attention is given to an oscillator circuit description, an IMPATT diode circuit model, a circuit model, and an oscillator analysis.

Bates, B. D.↗
NASA NTRS1984

64-meter to 70-meter Antenna Extension

The Deep Space Network 64-m antennas are being upgraded to improve their performance by increasing the diameter to 70 m, installing precision panels, and using a shaped surface. Performance improvement is expected to be 1.9 dB at X-band and 1.4 dB at S-band. The design and capabilities of the antenna are discussed.

Mcclure, D. H.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Microwave Surface Resistivity of Several Materials at Ambient Temperature

Microwave surface resistivity of a number of metal and other sample materials was measured at X-band, approximately 8400 MHz. The method of measurement uses a TE sub 011 mode circular waveguide cavity resonator wherein the sample is used as one end of the cavity. This method has been used previously in JPL work with good results. Microwave reflection loss and noise arising from the dissipative loss are given, for materials having negligible transmission leakage.

H. F. Reilly↗
NASA NTRS1985

DSN 34-meter Antenna Optics Analysis for Wideband SETI Investigations

A DSN 34-meter symmetric Cassegrain antenna configuration is examined for wideband use over the frequency range of 1 to 10 GHz, rather than only at the narrow-band operational design frequencies of 2.295 GHz (S-band) and 8.448 GHz (X-band). Aperture efficiency and surface efficiency are calculated as the components determining the gain of the antenna. Noise temperature contributions arise from the ground, atmosphere, and quadripod scattering. These components are calculated as a function of frequency elevation angle to determine a G/T (gain/system noise temperature) figure-of-merit for a nominal 34-meter antenna configuration. A computational method was developed which will enable design of a multi-horn antenna feed system to optimally cover the 1 to 10 GHz frequency range.

Slobin, S. D.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Modeling the backscattering and transmission properties of vegetation canopies

Experimental measurements of canopy attenuation at 10.2 GHz (X-band) for canopies of wheat and soybeans, experimental observations of the effect upon the microwave backscattering coefficient (sigma) of free water in a vegetation canopy, and experimental measurements of sigma (10.2 GHz, 50 deg, VV and VH polarization) of 30 agricultural fields over the growing season of each crop are discussed. The measurements of the canopy attenuation through wheat independently determined the attenuation resulting from the wheat heads and that from the stalks. An experiment conducted to simulate the effects of rain or dew on sigma showed that sigma increases by about 3 dB as a result of spraying a vegetation canopy with water. The temporal observations of sigma for the 30 agricultural fields (10 each of wheat, corn, and soybeans) indicated fields of the same crop type exhibits similar temporal patterns. Models previously reported were tested using these multitemporal sigma data, and a new model for each crop type was developed and tested. The new models proved to be superior to the previous ones.

Allen, C. T.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Analysis of Synthetic Aperture Radar data acquired over a variety of land cover

An analysis has been conducted of two-look-angle, multipolarization X-band SAR results. On the basis of the variety of land covers studied, the vertical-vertical polarization (VV) data is judged to contain the highest degree of contrast, while the horizontal-vertical (HV) polarization contained the least. VV polarization data is accordingly recommended for forest vegetation classification in those cases where only one data channel is available. The inclusion of horizontal-horizontal polarization data, however, is noted to be capable of delineating special surface features.

Wu, S. T.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Birds and insects as radar targets - A review

A review of radar cross-section measurements of birds and insects is presented. A brief discussion of some possible theoretical models is also given and comparisons made with the measurements. The comparisons suggest that most targets are, at present, better modeled by a prolate spheroid having a length-to-width ratio between 3 and 10 than by the often used equivalent weight water sphere. In addition, many targets observed with linear horizontal polarization have maximum cross sections much better estimated by a resonant half-wave dipole than by a water sphere. Also considered are birds and insects in the aggregate as a local radar 'clutter' source. Order-of-magnitude estimates are given for many reasonable target number densities. These estimates are then used to predict X-band volume reflectivities. Other topics that are of interest to the radar engineer are discussed, including the doppler bandwidth due to the internal motions of a single bird, the radar cross-section probability densities of single birds and insects, the variability of the functional form of the probability density functions, and the Fourier spectra of single birds and insects.

Vaughn, C. R.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Spaceborne multifunction imaging radar antenna development

Past and present studies of Multifunction Synthetic Aperture Radar Technology at NASA's Johnson Space Center have given attention to the design of lens antennas, planar arrays, and continuous apertures, such as reflectors. Current emphasis is on an interleaved, open ended waveguide array and microstrip antenna, with design work proceeding for multifrequency operation L, C, and X-band antennas, all of which possess multipolarization. In order to meet ground swath and azimuth resolution requirements, the antennas are designed to provide a beamwidth of 6.2 deg in elevation and 1 deg in azimuth.

Schaeper, H. R. A.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Comparison of the calibration of ionospheric delay in VLBI data by the methods of dual frequency and Faraday rotation

When both S-band and X-band data are recorded for a signal which has passed through the ionosphere, it is possible to calculate the ionospheric contribution to signal delay. In Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) this method is used to calibrate the ionosphere. In the absence of dual frequency data, the ionospheric content measured by Faraday rotation, using a signal from a geostationary satellite, is mapped to the VLBI observing direction. The purpose here is to compare the ionospheric delay obtained by these two methods. The principal conclusions are: (1) the correlation between delays obtained by these two methods is weak; (2) in mapping Faraday rotation measurements to the VLBI observing direction, a simple mapping algorithm which accounts only for changes in hour angle and elevation angle is better than a more elaborate algorithm which includes solar and geomagnetic effects; (3) fluctuations in the difference in total electron content as seen by two antennas defining a baseline limit the application of Faraday rotation data to VLBI.

Scheid, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Coupled translations of the 64-meter antenna subreflector supports

The Tricone subreflector assembly of the 64-m diameter antenna is supported from the apex of the quadripod by six flexure rods. The subreflector can be translated in the three orthogonal axes by jackscrews at the ends of each rod. The arrangement of the six rods is described and analysis of the position errors introduced by coupled translation is presented. The results indicate that negligible RF gain losses caused by axis-coupled translations (less than 0.05 dB) are possible at X-band (8.45 GHz) operation.

Katow, M. S.↗
NASA NTRS1985

CNPq/INPE-LANDSAT system

The current status of the Brazilian LANDSAT facilities operated by Instituto de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) and the results achieved during the period from October 1, 1984 to August 31, 1985 are presented. INPE's Receiving Station at Cuiaba, MT, operates normally the two tracking and receiving systems it has installed, the old one (1973) for Band S and the new one (February 1983) for dual S- and X-band. Both MSS and TM recording capabilities are functional. Support to the NASA Backup Plan for MSS data also remains active. Routine recordings are being made for LANDSAT-5 only, for both MSS and TM. Originally, MSS was recorded over the full acquisition range. However, since December, 1984, due to further reduction of operational expenses, both instruments are being recorded over Brazilian territory only.

Debarrosaguirre, J. L.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Science Results from the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR): Progress Report

The Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) is the most advanced imaging radar system to fly in Earth orbit. Carried in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle Endeavour in April and October of 1994, SIR-C/X-SAR simultaneously recorded SAR data at three wavelengths (L-, C-, and X-bands; 23.5, 5.8, and 3.1 cm, respectively). The SIR-C/X-SAR Science Team consists of 53 investigator teams from more than a dozen countries. Science investigations were undertaken in the fields of ecology, hydrology, ecology, and oceanography. This report contains 44 investigator team reports and several additional reports from coinvestigators and other researchers.

Diane L Evans↗