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Technical background, chapter 3, part B

A description is given of the physics of electromagnetic scattering from the sea and a guideline is presented to relate an observable (such as the radar cross section) to the hydrodynamics or physical properties of the sea. As specific examples of the interdisciplinary science of electromagnetics and geophysical oceanography, the physics is discussed in connection with data provided by three instruments: namely, the scatterometer, the altimeter, and the imaging radar. The data provided by each instrument are discussed in context with specular point and Bragg scattering theories. Finally, the degrading effect of extraneous sources of noise is discussed as a limiting mechanism of the accuracy of the ocean surface measurement.

Source record↗

The electromagnetic environment for the Space Shuttle orbiter

The electromagnetic environment of the Shuttle orbiter is discussed with respect to the electromagnetic compatibility of the orbiter and its cargo. Effects on payloads of the orbiter's Ku-band antenna are considered, along with the effects of unintentional emissions in the cargo bay, the magnetic fields produced by the orbiter and various payloads, lightning-produced magnetic fields, and noise and transients in the AC and DC power buses. Special EMI testing is described that was carried out to substantiate the orbiter's electromagnetic compatibility. It is concluded that the orbiter presents a very benign electromagnetic environment for cargo except for payloads or experiments that use very sensitive receivers or instruments that can measure low magnetic or electric fields.

Giffin, B. L.↗

Small satellite solar array substrate

The SMall EXplorer (SMEX) Fast Auroral SnapshoT (FAST) spacecraft was developed to investigate plasma physics of auroral phenomena at high orbital altitude. The FAST satellite comprises a variety of deployable booms with sensors on the ends, and instruments that protrude from the main body of the spacecraft to obtain the plasma and electromagnetic fields data. This required the plasma disturbance around the satellite to be kept to a minimum. A non deployable, body mounted solar array was implemented. This led to the design of a light weight solar array substrate with a high degree of structural integrity.

Fiore, John N.↗

The interaction with the lower ionosphere of electromagnetic pulses from lightning: Excitation of optical emissions

A self consistent and fully kinetic simulation of the interaction of lightning radiated electromagnetic (EM) pulses with the nighttime lower ionosphere indicates that optical emissions observable with conventional instruments would be excited. For example, emissions of the 1st and 2nd positive bands of N2 occur at rates reaching 7 x 10(exp 7) and 10(exp 7) cu cm/s respectively at 92 km altitude for a lightning discharge with an electric field E(sub 100) = 20 V/m (normalized to a 100 km distance). The maximum height integrated intensities of these emissions are 4 x 10(exp 7) and 6 x 10(exp 6) R respectively, lasting for approx. 50 micrometers.

Taranenko, Y. N.↗

Near-source and Remote Observations of Kilometric Continuum Radiation from Multispacecraft Observations

[I] Kilometric continuum (KC) radiation was first identified from Geotail plasma wave observations. Past authors have shown that this emission has a frequency range that overlaps that of the auroral kilometric radiation (AKR) but is characterized by a fine structure of narrow-bandwidth, linear features that have nearly constant or drifting frequency. This fine structure is distinct from that of AKR. KC also apparently has a distinct source region probably associated with the low-latitude inner magnetosphere, consistent with direction-finding and ray-tracing results. We present new high-resolution electric and magnetic field observations of KC obtained by the Polar plasma wave instrument in the near-source region. These observations show intense electrostatic and less intense electromagnetic emissions near the magnetic equator at the plasmapause. Simultaneously, Geotail, located at 20 to 30 RE in radial distance, observes KC in the same frequency range. These data support a possible mode-conversion source mechanism near a region of high-density gradient. High-resolution data obtained from wideband receivers on board both Polar and Cluster show closely spaced bands of emission near the magnetic equator that may be due to many nearby independent sources of EM emission perhaps associated with density fluctuations or cavities in the plasmasphere.

Menietti, J. D.↗

Capabilities and Testing of the Fission Surface Power Primary Test Circuit (FSP-PTC)

An actively pumped alkali metal flow circuit, designed and fabricated at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, is currently undergoing testing in the Early Flight Fission Test Facility (EFF-TF). Sodium potassium (NaK), which was used in the SNAP-10A fission reactor, was selected as the primary coolant. Basic circuit components include: simulated reactor core, NaK to gas heat exchanger, electromagnetic (EM) liquid metal pump, liquid metal flowmeter, load/drain reservoir, expansion reservoir, test section, and instrumentation. Operation of the circuit is based around a 37-pin partial-array core (pin and flow path dimensions are the same as those in a full core), designed to operate at 33 kWt. NaK flow rates of greater than 1 kg/sec may be achieved, depending upon the power applied to the EM pump. The heat exchanger provides for the removal of thermal energy from the circuit, simulating the presence of an energy conversion system. The presence of the test section increases the versatility of the circuit. A second liquid metal pump, an energy conversion system, and highly instrumented thermal simulators are all being considered for inclusion within the test section. This paper summarizes the capabilities and ongoing testing of the Fission Surface Power Primary Test Circuit (FSP-PTC).

Garber, Anne E.↗

NASA Perspectives on Earth Observations from Satellite or 50 Years of Meteorological Satellite Experiments-The NASA Perspective

The NASA was established in 1959. From those very eady days to the present NASA has been intimately involved with NOAA and the scientific community in the development and operation of satellite and sensor experiments. The early efforts included experiments on the TIROS and geostationary Applications Technology Satellites (ATS) series. In the latter case the spin-scan cameras conceived by Verner Suomi, along with the TIROS cameras, opened new vistas at what could be done in meteorological studies with the daily, nearly global, synoptic views from space-borne sensors As the years passed and the Nimbus series of satellites came into being in the 1960's, more quantitative observations with longer-lifetime, increasingly capable, better calibrated instruments came into being. NASA, in collaboration with and in support of NOAA, implemented operational systems that we now know as the Polar Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) series and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) series that provided dependable, continuous, dedicated satellite observations for use by the weather and atmospheric science communities. Through the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's improved, well-calibrated instruments with more spectral bands extending into the thermal and the microwave portions of the electromagnetic spectrum were provided to obtain accurate soundings of the atmosphere, atmospheric chemistry constituents such as ozone, global sea surface temperature, snow and ice extent, vegetation dynamics, etc. In the 1990's and up to the present the NASA/Earth Observing System (EOS) has been developed, implemented, and operated over many years to provide a very comprehensive suite of observations of the atmosphere, as well as land and ocean parameters. The future looks bright wherein the development of new systems, broadly described by the National Academy of Science Decadal Study, is now underway. NASA, along with collaborations with NOAA, other agencies, and the scientific and applications communities looks forward to achieving in the years to come goals possible with the global information provided by satellites and continuously improved with technology development, joint data assimilation efforts, and attendant research studies.

Einaudi, Franco↗

Continuous, Full-Circle Arctangent Circuit

A circuit generates an analog voltage proportional to an angle, in response to two sinusoidal input voltages having magnitudes proportional to the sine and cosine of the angle, respectively. That is to say, given input voltages proportional to sin(Omega(t))sin(Theta) and sin(Omega(t))cos(Theta) [where Theta denotes the angle, mega denotes 2(pi) x a carrier frequency, and t denotes time], the circuit generates a steady voltage proportional to Theta. The output voltage varies continuously from its minimum to its maximum value as Theta varies from -180deg to 180deg. While the circuit could accept input modulated sine and cosine signals from any source, it must be noted that such signals are typical of the outputs of shaft-angle resolvers in electromagnetic actuators used to measure and control shaft angles for diverse purposes like aiming scientific instruments and adjusting valve openings. In effect, the circuit is an analog computer that calculates the arctangent of the ratio between the sine and cosine signals. The full-circle angular range of this arctangent circuit stands in contrast to the range of prior analog arctangent circuits, which is from slightly greater than -90deg to slightly less than +90deg. Moreover, for applications in which continuous variation of output is preferred to discrete increments of output, this circuit offers a clear advantage over resolver- to-digital integrated circuits.

Alhorn, Dean C.↗

Swift Follow-Up Observations of Candidate Gravitational-Wave Transient Events

We present the first multi-wavelength follow-up observations of two candidate gravitational-wave (GW) transient events recorded by LIGO and Virgo in their 2009-2010 science run. The events were selected with low latency by the network of GW detectors (within less than 10 minutes) and their candidate sky locations were observed by the Swift observatory (within 12 hr). Image transient detection was used to analyze the collected electromagnetic data, which were found to be consistent with background. Off-line analysis of the GW data alone has also established that the selected GW events show no evidence of an astrophysical origin; one of them is consistent with background and the other one was a test, part of a "blind injection challenge." With this work we demonstrate the feasibility of rapid follow-ups of GW transients and establish the sensitivity improvement joint electromagnetic and GW observations could bring. This is a first step toward an electromagnetic follow-up program in the regime of routine detections with the advanced GW instruments expected within this decade. In that regime, multi-wavelength observations will play a significant role in completing the astrophysical identification of GW sources. We present the methods and results from this first combined analysis and discuss its implications in terms of sensitivity for the present and future instruments.

Evans, P. A.↗

Optimal A-Train Data Utilization: A Use Case of Aura OMI L2G and MERRA-2 Aerosol Products

Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aboard NASA's Aura mission measures ozone column and profile, aerosols, clouds, surface UV irradiance, and the trace gases including NO2, SO2, HCHO, BrO, and OClO using UltraViolet electromagnetic spectrum (280 - 400 nm) with a daily global coverage and a pixel spatial resolution of 13 km × 24 km at nadir, and it's been one of the key instruments to study the Earth's atmospheric composition and chemistry. The second Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2) is NASA's atmospheric reanalysis using an upgraded version of Goddard Earth Observing System Model, version 5 (GEOS-5) data assimilation system. Compared to its predecessor MERRA, MERRA-2 is enhanced with more aspects of the Earth system among which is aerosol assimilation. When comparing between satellite pixel measurements and modeled grid data, how to properly handle counterpart pairing is critical considering their spatial and temporal variations. The comparison between satellite and model data by simply using Level 3 (L3) products may result biases due to lack of detailed temporal information. It has been preferred to inter-compare or implement satellite derived physical quantity (i.e., Level 2 (L2) Swath type) directly with/to model measurements with higher temporal and spatial resolution as possible. However, this has posed a challenge in the community to handle. Rather than directly handling the L2 or L3 data, there is a Level 2G (L2G) product conserving L2 pixel scientific data quality but in Grid type with the global coverage. In this presentation, we would like to demonstrate the optimal utilization of OMI L2G daily aerosol products by comparing with MERRA-2 hourly aerosol simulations matched well in both space and time.

MERRA-2 reanalysis↗

Exploring the Birth and Evolution of the Universe: How Detectors Have Revolutionized Space Astronomy

The past century has seen tremendous advances in the capability of instruments used for astronomical imaging and spectroscopy. Capabilities of instruments have expanded in many dimensions; the scale of telescopes has grown tremendously, the wavelengths used for astronomy have grown from visible light to the full electromagnetic spectrum, extending from gamma rays to low frequency radio waves. Additional advances have been enabled by the availability of space facilities, which eliminate the effects of the earths atmosphere and magnetosphere, and allow cooling of instruments to avoid instrumental thermal radiation. Even with all these advances, the increase in capability of detection systems has produced truly revolutionary improvements in capability. Today, I will describe the advances in astronomical detection from the photographic plates of the early 20th century to the giant high efficiency focal planes being developed for modern space and ground based astronomical instrument. I will review the demanding performance requirements set by space astronomy, and show how the detector community has risen to the challenge in producing high performance detectors for the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the James Webb Space Telescope, now under development.

Moseley, Samuel H.↗

Studies of an array of PbF 2 Cherenkov crystals with large-area SiPM readout

Here, the electromagnetic calorimeter for the new muon (g-2) experiment at Fermilab will consist of arrays of PbF 2 Cherenkov crystals read out by large-area silicon photo-multiplier (SiPM) sensors. We report here on measurements and simulations using 2.0 - 4.5 GeV electrons with a 28-element prototype array. All data were obtained using fast waveform digitizers to accurately capture signal pulse shapes versus energy, impact position, angle, and crystal wrapping. The SiPMs were gain matched using a laser-based calibration system, which also provided a stabilization procedure that allowed gain correction to a level of 10 -4 per hour.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Polarization Rotation and the Third Stokes Parameter: The Effects of Spacecraft Attitude and Faraday Rotation

The third Stokes parameter of ocean surface brightness temperatures measured by the WindSat instrument is sensitive to the rotation angle between the polarization vectors at the ocean surface and the instrument. This rotation angle depends on the spacecraft attitude (roll, pitch, yaw) as well as the Faraday rotation of the electromagnetic radiation passing through the Earth's ionosphere. Analyzing the WindSat antenna temperatures, we find biases in the third Stokes parameter as function of the along-scan position of up to 1.5 K in all feedhorns. This points to a misspecification of the reported spacecraft attitude. A single attitude correction of -0.16deg roll and 0.18deg pitch for the whole instrument eliminates all the biases. We also study the effect of Faraday rotation at 10.7 GHz on the accuracy of the third Stokes parameter and the sea surface wind direction retrieval and demonstrate how this error can be corrected using values from the International Reference Ionosphere for the total electron content when computing Faraday rotation.

Meissner, Thomas↗

A Description of the Software Element of the NASA EME Flight Tests

In support of NASA's Fly-By-Light/Power-By-Wire (FBL/PBW) program, a series of flight tests were conducted by NASA Langley Research Center in February, 1995. The NASA Boeing 757 was flown past known RF transmitters to measure both external and internal radiated fields. The aircraft was instrumented with strategically located sensors for acquiring data on shielding effectiveness and internal coupling. The data are intended to support computational and statistical modeling codes used to predict internal field levels of an electromagnetic environment (EME) on aircraft. The software was an integral part of the flight tests, as well as the data reduction process. The software, which provided flight test instrument control, data acquisition, and a user interface, executes on a Hewlett Packard (HP) 300 series workstation and uses BP VEEtest development software and the C programming language. Software tools were developed for data processing and analysis, and to provide a database organized by frequency bands, test runs, and sensors. This paper describes the data acquisition system on board the aircraft and concentrates on the software portion. Hardware and software interfaces are illustrated and discussed. Particular attention is given to data acquisition and data format. The data reduction process is discussed in detail to provide insight into the characteristics, quality, and limitations of the data. An analysis of obstacles encountered during the data reduction process is presented.

Koppen, Sandra V.↗

Effects of electromagnetic wave interference on observations of the Earth radiation budget

This paper investigates conditions necessary to match the irradiance derived by integrating radiances measured by a narrow field of view scanning radiometer with the irradiance measured by a hemispherical radiometer, both placed at a satellite altitude for Earth radiation budget estimates. When all sources are similar and they are spatially distributed randomly, then integrating radiance for the irradiance does not introduce a bias. Although the exact magnitude of the bias in other conditions is unknown, a finite area of the aperture that is much larger than the coherence area of radiation contributing to the Earth radiation budget, and a finite time to take a single measurement that is longer than the coherence time are likely to make the difference of the irradiance integrated from radiances and the irradiance measured by a hemispherical instrument insignificant. This conclusion does not contradict the existence of spatial coherence of light from incoherent sources. Therefore, electromagnetic energy absorbed by Earth is derivable from radiances measured by a scanning radiometer integrated over the Earth-viewing hemisphere and then averaging across all locations on the satellite orbital sphere when combined with solar irradiance measurements. Comparisons made in earlier studies show that the difference is less than 1%. In addition, when surface irradiances computed by a radiative transfer model constrained by top-of-atmosphere irradiances derived from radiance measurements are compared with downward shortwave irradiances taken by combinations of a pyreheliometer and a shaded pyranometer, or pyranometers, and with longwave ir- radiances taken by pyrgeometers, the biases in monthly mean irradiances are less than the uncertainties in the surface observations.

Seiji Kato↗

Response of thermal ions to electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves

Electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves generated by 10 - 50 keV protons in the Earth's equatorial magnetosphere will interact with the ambient low-energy ions also found in this region. We examine H(+) and He(+) distribution functions from approx. equals 1 to 160 eV using the Hot Plasma Composition Experiment instrument on AMPTE/CCE to investigate the thermal ion response to the waves. A total of 48 intervals were chosen on the basis of electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) wave activity: 24 with prevalent EMIC waves and 24 with no EMIC waves observed on the orbit. There is a close correlation between EMIC waves and perpendicular heated ion distributions. For protons the perpendicular temperature increase is modest, about 5 eV, and is always observed at 90 deg pitch angles. This is consistent with a nonresonant interaction near the equator. By contrast, He(+) temperatures during EMIC wave events averaged 35 eV and sometimes exceeded 100 eV, indicating stronger interaction with the waves. Furthermore, heated He(+) ions have X-type distributions with maximum fluxes occurring at pitch angles intermediate between field-aligned and perpendicular directions. The X-type He(+) distributions are consistent with a gyroresonant interaction off the equator. The concentration of He(+) relative to H(+) is found to correlate with EMIC wave activity, but it is suggested that the preferential heating of He(+) accounts for the apparent increase in relative He(+) concentration by increasing the proportion of He(+) detected by the ion instrument.

Anderson, B. J.↗

5G Enabled Energy Innovation: Advanced Wireless Networks for Science (Workshop Report)

Rapidly expanding, new telecommunications infrastructure based on 5G technologies will disrupt and transform how we design, build, operate, and optimize scientific infrastructure and the experiments and services enabled by that infrastructure, from continental-scale sensor networks to centralized scientific user facilities, from intelligent Internet of Things devices to supercomputers. Concurrently, 5G will introduce, or exacerbate, challenges related to protecting infrastructure and associated scientific data as well as to fully leveraging opportunities related to expanded infrastructure scale and complexity. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science operates scientific infrastructure, supporting some of the nation’s most advanced intellectual discoveries, spanning the country and including 30 world-class user facilities from supercomputers to accelerators. Along with field experiments and remote observatories, every aspect of DOE’s scientific enterprise will be affected by 5G, which amounts to a complete renovation of the underpinnings of the nation’s information infrastructure. In this report we explore the scientific opportunities and new research challenges associated with 5G, ranging from scalability to heterogeneity to cybersecurity. The rapid commercial deployment of 5G opens the opportunity to rethink and reinvent DOE’s scientific infrastructure and experimentation, from intelligent sensor networks at unprecedented scales to a digital continuum of cyberinfrastructure spanning low-power sensors, high-performance computing embedded within and at the edge of the network, and DOE’s large-scale user instrument and computing facilities. New programming paradigms, workflow and data frameworks, and AI-based system design, operation, and autonomous adaptation and optimization will be necessary in order to exploit these new opportunities. Field deployments and centralized scientific instruments can also be revolutionized, moving (without traditional performance penalties) from wired to wireless connectivity for data and control systems, improving flexibility, and opening new sensing modalities, including the use of the 5G electromagnetic spectrum itself as an environmental probe. For DOE science, in contrast to commercial 5G applications and settings, devices will be deployed in extreme environments such as cryogenically cooled instrument control systems and in remote settings with harsh conditions, requiring the design of new materials for RF communication and edge processing to operate in these regimes. Concurrently, 5G infrastructure comprises both hardware and sophisticated software systems - currently closed and proprietary. The cybersecurity challenges to 5G-empowered reinvention mirror the complexity and variety of new 5G features, from virtualization to private network slices to ubiquitous access. Research is also needed in order to accelerate the development of secure and open 5G software infrastructure, reducing reliance on hardware and software produced outside the United States and providing the transparency and rigorous evaluation and testing afforded through open software. Twelve broad research thrusts are laid out in four chapters, with a companion fifth chapter (and three additional research thrusts) underscoring the needs and opportunities for an aggressive testbed program co-designed by networking experts and scientists involved in the 15 research thrusts. The urgency of undertaking this research is fueled by a global, accelerating deployment of new telecommunications infrastructure that is designed for entertainment and commercial applications - barely scratching the surface of what 5G can do to extend U.S. leadership in scientific discovery.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Performance of the first prototype of the CALICE scintillator strip electromagnetic calorimeter

A first prototype of a scintillator strip-based electromagnetic calorimeter was built, consisting of 26 layers of tungsten absorber plates interleaved with planes of 45 × 10 × 3 mm³ plastic scintillator strips. Data were collected using a positron test beam at DESY with momenta between 1 and 6 GeV/c. The prototype's performance is presented in terms of the linearity and resolution of the energy measurement. These results represent an important milestone in the development of highly granular calorimeters using scintillator strip technology. A number of possible design improvements were identified, which should be implemented in a future detector of this type. This technology is being developed for a future linear collider experiment, aiming at the precise measurement of jet energies using particle flow techniques.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗