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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 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1996

Force limited vibration testing of Cassini spacecraft cosmic dust analyser

The testing of the cosmic dust analyzer for the Cassini mission using the force limited method in order to avoid overtesting and to verify the ability of the specimen design to withstand the loads during launch and cruise, is reported on. In order to implement the method, force gages, fixtures and a test controller are required and the test specimen is subjected to sine vibration, random vibration and half sine shock. The practical aspects of the use of the force limited method are described. Due to the high loads and the weak design of the structural element, a notching method is used which provides the possibility of limiting the excitation to flight expected levels.

Jahn, Heiko↗
NASA NTRS2005

Laboratory Investigations of the Physical and Optical Properties of the Analogs of Individual Cosmic Dust Grains

Microdsub-micron size cosmic dust grains play an important role in the physical and dynamical process in the galaxy, the interstellar medium, and the interplanetary and planetary environments. The dust grains in various astrophysical environments are generally charged by a variety of mechanisms that include collisional process with electrons and ions, and photoelectric emissions with UV radiation. The photoelectric emission process is believed to be the dominant process in many astrophysical environments with nearby UV sources, such as the interstellar medium, diffuse clouds, the outer regions of the dense molecular clouds, interplanetary medium, dust in planetary environments and rings, cometary tails, etc. Also, the processes and mechanisms involved in the rotation and alignment of interstellar dust grains are of great interest in view of the polarization of observed starlight as a probe for evaluation of the galactic magnetic field.

Abbas, M. M.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Collecting Comet Samples by ER-2 Aircraft: Cosmic Dust Collection During the Draconid Meteor Shower in October 2012

Many tons of dust grains, including samples of asteroids and comets, fall from space into the Earth's atmosphere each day. NASA periodically collects some of these particles from the Earth's stratosphere using sticky collectors mounted on NASA's high-flying aircraft. Sometimes, especially when the Earth experiences a known meteor shower, a special opportunity is presented to associate cosmic dust particles with a known source. NASA JSC's Cosmic Dust Collection Program has made special attempts to collect dust from particular meteor showers and asteroid families when flights can be planned well in advance. However, it has rarely been possible to make collections on very short notice. In 2012, the Draconid meteor shower presented that opportunity. The Draconid meteor shower, originating from Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, has produced both outbursts and storms several times during the last century, but the 2012 event was not predicted to be much of a show. Because of these predictions, the Cosmic Dust team had not targeted a stratospheric collection effort for the Draconids, despite the fact that they have one of the slowest atmospheric entry velocities (23 km/s) of any comet shower, and thus offer significant possibilities of successful dust capture. However, radar measurements obtained by the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar during the 2012 Draconids shower indicated a meteor storm did occur October 8 with a peak at 16:38 (+/-5 min) UTC for a total duration of approximately 2 hours.

Bastien, Ron↗
NASA NTRS1974

Two high resolution velocity vector analyzers for cosmic dust particles

Methods are described to measure velocities and angles of incidence of charged cosmic dust particles with precisions of about 1 percent and 1 degree, respectively. Both methods employ four one-dimensional position-sensitive detectors in series. The first method utilizes a charge-dividing technique while the second utilizes a time-of-flight technique for determining the position of a particle inside the instrument. The velocity vectors are measured although mechanical interaction between the particle and the instrument is completely avoided. Applications to cosmic dust composition and collection experiments are discussed. The range of radii of measurable particles is from about 0.01 to 100 microns at velocities from 1 to 80 km/s.

Aver, S.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Cosmic Dust Collection Facility: Scientific objectives and programmatic relations

The science objectives are summarized for the Cosmic Dust Collection Facility (CDCF) on Space Station Freedom and these objectives are related to ongoing science programs and mission planning within NASA. The purpose is to illustrate the potential of the CDCF project within the broad context of early solar system sciences that emphasize the study of primitive objects in state-of-the-art analytical and experimental laboratories on Earth. Current knowledge about the sources of cosmic dust and their associated orbital dynamics is examined, and the results are reviewed of modern microanalytical investigations of extraterrestrial dust particles collected on Earth. Major areas of scientific inquiry and uncertainty are identified and it is shown how CDCF will contribute to their solution. General facility and instrument concepts that need to be pursued are introduced, and the major development tasks that are needed to attain the scientific objectives of the CDCF project are identified.

Hoerz, Fred↗
NASA NTRS1975

Hyperbolic cosmic dust - Its origin and its astrophysical significance

The heliocentric radial distribution of the flux of hyperbolic cosmic dust particles, as measured by the Pioneer 8 and 9 spacecraft, is closely related to the radial variation of the spatial density of source or parent meteoroids. Within the limits of the experimental and theoretical uncertainties the spatial density of parent meteoroids, as deduced from the hyperbolic cosmic dust data, is found to be increasing with increasing heliocentric distance in the neighborhood of one AU. Other recent experimental evidence confirms this result. The new results also suggest that the ratio of the areal density of submicron-sized craters to the areal density of millimeter-sized craters will be less on the north-south faces of lunar rocks than on the east-west faces of the same rocks. The change in ratio is not as large as previously thought. It is noted that the solar system is not presently contributing significant amounts of dust to the interstellar medium though it may once have done so.

Zook, H. A.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Two high resolution velocity vector analyzers for cosmic dust particles

Two new methods are described to measure velocities and angles of incidence of charged cosmic dust particles with precisions of about 1% and 1 deg, respectively. Both methods employ four one-dimensional position-sensitive detectors in series. The first method utilizes a charge-dividing technique while the second utilizes a time-of-flight technique for determining the position of a particle inside the instrument. The velocity vectors are measured although mechanical interaction between the particle and the instrument is completely avoided. Applications to cosmic dust composition and collection experiments are discussed. The range of radii of measurable particles is from about 0.01 to 100 microns at velocities from 1 to 80 km/sec.

Auer, S.↗
NASA NTRS1990

The Cosmic Dust Collection Facility on Space Station Freedom

The Cosmic Dust Collection Facility is an attached payload on board the Freedom Station that will serve as a long-term observatory of all dust-sized particles, typically of much less than 1 mm, either natural or man-made. Its instruments will measure the trajectories of individual hypervelocity particles and will trap the fragmented, melted or vaporized impactor residues in suitable capture media. The latter will be periodically returned to earth for detailed mineralogic and chemical characterization of these residues. The trajectory information will permit reconstruction of the astrophysical source(s) of natural dust grains, such that the compositional information may serve as proxy-analysis of primitive solar system objects among which comets and asteroids are known to be the most prolific dust sources. Trajectory information and chemical composition of man-made particles will yield clues about the most prolific anthropogenic sources. Direct measurement of the dynamic properties of all particles will contribute substantially toward an understanding of the collisional hazards to current and future space operations in LEO.

Horz, Friedrich↗
NASA NTRS1997

Cosmic Dust Catalog: Particles from Collectors L2036 and L2021 - Volume 15

Since May 1981, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has used aircraft to collect cosmic dust (CD) particles from Earth's stratosphere. Specially designed dust collectors are prepared for flight and processed after flight in an ultraclean (Class-100) laboratory constructed for this purpose at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. Particles are individually retrieved from the collectors, examined and cataloged, and then made available to the scientific community for research. Cosmic dust thereby joins lunar samples and meteorites as an additional source of extraterrestrial materials for scientific study. This catalog summarizes preliminary observations on 468 particles retrieved from collection surfaces L2021 and L2036. These surfaces were flat plate Large Area Collectors (with a 300 cm2 surface area each) which was coated with silicone oil (dimethyl siloxane) and then flown aboard a NASA ER-2 aircraft during a series of flights that were made during January and February of 1994 (L2021) and June 7 through July 5 of 1994 (L2036). Collector L2021 was flown across the entire southern margin of the US (California to Florida), and collector L2036 was flown from California to Wallops Island, VA and on to New England. These collectors were installed in a specially constructed wing pylon which ensured that the necessary level of cleanliness was maintained between periods of active sampling. During successive periods of high altitude (20 km) cruise, the collectors were exposed in the stratosphere by barometric controls and then retracted into sealed storage container-s prior to descent. In this manner, a total of 35.8 hours of stratospheric exposure was accumulated for collector L2021, and 26 hours for collector L2036.

Warren, J.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Atmospheric entry heating of cosmic dust

A computer simulation of the atmospheric entry deceleration and heating for micrometeorites into a planetary atmosphere was developed. The results of this model were compared to an earlier model. The major difference between the extent of heating experienced in the two models results from an underestimation of the atmospheric density at altitudes above 130 km in the earlier model. Thus the earlier model systematically overestimates the peak temperature reached on atmospheric entry. The discrepancies are small for near vertical entry and/or high density particles, where little deceleration is experienced at high altitudes. For particles entering at grazing incidence and/or of low density the discrepancies are more pronounced. Gravitational enhancement, which is a function of geocentric velocity at the collection opportunity, was found to bias near Earth cosmic dust collections in favor of low velocity particles. The effect is to increase the proportion of low velocity dust, predominately from asteroids, in the stratospheric cosmic dust collections and on Earth orbiting spacecraft impact surfaces over its proportion in the interplanetary dust cloud.

Flynn, George J.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Lunar soil movement registered by the Apollo 17 cosmic dust experiment

The paper describes the Lunar Ejecta and Meteorites (LEAM) experiment of the Apollo 17 flight mission, placed in the Taurus-Littrow area of the moon. The objective of the experiment was to measure impact parameters of cosmic dust on the lunar surface. Preliminary data analysis led to the recognition that the bulk of events recorded by the LEAM experiment are not signatures of hypervelocity cosmic dust particles as expected, but are induced signatures of electrostatically charged and transported lunar fines.

Berg, O. E.↗