Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “distance map”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2015

Advances in Distance-Based Hole Cuts on Overset Grids

An automatic and efficient method to determine appropriate hole cuts based on distances to the wall and donor stencil maps for overset grids is presented. A new robust procedure is developed to create a closed surface triangulation representation of each geometric component for accurate determination of the minimum hole. Hole boundaries are then displaced away from the tight grid-spacing regions near solid walls to allow grid overlap to occur away from the walls where cell sizes from neighboring grids are more comparable. The placement of hole boundaries is efficiently determined using a mid-distance rule and Cartesian maps of potential valid donor stencils with minimal user input. Application of this procedure typically results in a spatially-variable offset of the hole boundaries from the minimum hole with only a small number of orphan points remaining. Test cases on complex configurations are presented to demonstrate the new scheme.

Advances↗
NASA NTRS1990

Saturn ring rendezvous mission utilizing a tethered sub-satellite

By combining the advanced technologies of constant-thrust propulsion and space tethers in a planetary mission, it may be feasible to perform a complete radial and azimuthal survey of the Saturnian ring system from close range (about 10 km) in a period of some 300 days. Constant-thrust propulsion would provide the means of 'hovering' above the rings while simultaneously spiraling radially inward toward Saturn. Use of a tethered sub-satellite at a distance of 500-1000 km from the main spacecraft would permit an instrumented package to achieve a significant azimuthal angular rate relative to the rings. Exhaustive 360 deg azimuthal mapping at one or two selected distances from Saturn could be performed in a few tens of days.

Bright, Larry E.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Two-Wavelength Optical-Path-Difference Mapping

Proposed technique for measuring shapes and alignments of reflectors based on use of two-wavelength absolute-distance interferometer to generate optical-path-difference maps of reflecting or refracting surfaces. Facilitates such tasks as determining manufacturing and alignment errors of off-axis segment of large-aperture paraboloidal telescope mirror, or aligning all segments of such mirror. Suitable for use where reflecting surfaces highly aspherical, initial misalignments large, and/or surface errors exceed optical wavelengths.

Manhart, Paul K.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Zodiacal light and the asteroid belt - The view from Pioneer 10

Brightnesses measured by the Pioneer 10 imaging photopolarimeter in two regions of sky were compared on sky maps at sun-spacecraft distances from 2.4 to 4.8 AU to determine the spatial extent of the zodiacal light. Data in the ecliptic at elongations greater than 90 deg show negligible contribution to the zodiacal light beyond 3.3 AU, the 2:1 Jupiter resonance. The zodiacal light brightness at 2.4 AU is less than 10% of that observed at 1 AU.

Hanner, M. S.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Study of time-lapse processing for dynamic hydrologic conditions

The usefulness of dynamic display techniques in exploiting the repetitive nature of ERTS imagery was investigated. A specially designed Electronic Satellite Image Analysis Console (ESIAC) was developed and employed to process data for seven ERTS principal investigators studying dynamic hydrological conditions for diverse applications. These applications include measurement of snowfield extent and sediment plumes from estuary discharge, Playa Lake inventory, and monitoring of phreatophyte and other vegetation changes. The ESIAC provides facilities for storing registered image sequences in a magnetic video disc memory for subsequent recall, enhancement, and animated display in monochrome or color. The most unique feature of the system is the capability to time lapse the imagery and analytic displays of the imagery. Data products included quantitative measurements of distances and areas, binary thematic maps based on monospectral or multispectral decisions, radiance profiles, and movie loops. Applications of animation for uses other than creating time-lapse sequences are identified. Input to the ESIAC can be either digital or via photographic transparencies.

Serebreny, S. M.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Photometer calibration problem for extended astronomical sources

Analysis of calibration tests for the Skylab experimental T027 photometer is used to show that if an instrument is focused at infinity, the uniform extended calibration source should be positioned at distances at least equal to the hyperfocal distance and should be large enough to fill the field of view. It is noted that the field depth can be increased by focusing the optical system at the hyperfocal distance and that this method of focusing reduces the needed diameter of the calibration source to half that of a system focused at infinity. Other calibration methods discussed includes determining the radiance responsivity distance and extrapolating the curve to larger distances as well as extensive mapping of the spatial response combined with the irradiance responsivity to obtain the radiance responsivity.

Muscari, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Technique to determine location of radio sources from measurements taken on spinning spacecraft

The procedure developed to extract average source direction and average source size from spin-modulated radio astronomy data measured on the IMP-6 spacecraft is described. Because all measurements are used, rather than just finding maxima or minima in the data, the method is very sensitive, even in the presence of large amounts of noise. The technique is applicable to all experiments with directivity characteristics. It is suitable for onboard processing on satellites to reduce the data flow to Earth. The application to spin-modulated nonpolarized radio astronomy data is made and includes the effects of noise, background, and second source interference. The analysis was tested with computer simulated data and the results agree with analytic predictions. Applications of this method with IMP-6 radio data have led to: (1) determination of source positions of traveling solar radio bursts at large distances from the Sun; (2) mapping of magnetospheric radio emissions by radio triangulation; and (3) detection of low frequency radio emissions from Jupiter and Saturn.

Fainberg, J.↗
NASA NTRS1980

The infrared emission of G333.6-0.2 - An extremely nonspherical H II region

The southern H II region G333.6-0.2, which has a total luminosity of 3.3 million solar luminosities (for an assumed distance of 4 kpc) was mapped at 2.2, 10, 30, 50, and 100 microns. At all wavelengths, the surface brightness of the infrared radiation is unusually high and the structure of the source is compact and symmetrical. The present observations, along with previous data, suggest that G333.6-0.2 is excited by a single luminous object or a very compact cluster, which has formed on the front surface of a dense molecular cloud as seen from the earth. It is shown that the spectral and spatial characteristics of the infrared radiation can be understood in terms of this blister model.

Hyland, A. R.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Lidar Systems for Precision Navigation and Safe Landing on Planetary Bodies

The ability of lidar technology to provide three-dimensional elevation maps of the terrain, high precision distance to the ground, and approach velocity can enable safe landing of robotic and manned vehicles with a high degree of precision. Currently, NASA is developing novel lidar sensors aimed at needs of future planetary landing missions. These lidar sensors are a 3-Dimensional Imaging Flash Lidar, a Doppler Lidar, and a Laser Altimeter. The Flash Lidar is capable of generating elevation maps of the terrain that indicate hazardous features such as rocks, craters, and steep slopes. The elevation maps collected during the approach phase of a landing vehicle, at about 1 km above the ground, can be used to determine the most suitable safe landing site. The Doppler Lidar provides highly accurate ground relative velocity and distance data allowing for precision navigation to the landing site. Our Doppler lidar utilizes three laser beams pointed to different directions to measure line of sight velocities and ranges to the ground from altitudes of over 2 km. Throughout the landing trajectory starting at altitudes of about 20 km, the Laser Altimeter can provide very accurate ground relative altitude measurements that are used to improve the vehicle position knowledge obtained from the vehicle navigation system. At altitudes from approximately 15 km to 10 km, either the Laser Altimeter or the Flash Lidar can be used to generate contour maps of the terrain, identifying known surface features such as craters, to perform Terrain relative Navigation thus further reducing the vehicle s relative position error. This paper describes the operational capabilities of each lidar sensor and provides a status of their development. Keywords: Laser Remote Sensing, Laser Radar, Doppler Lidar, Flash Lidar, 3-D Imaging, Laser Altimeter, Precession Landing, Hazard Detection

Amzajerdian, Farzin↗
NASA NTRS1993

The structure of the nearby universe traced by theIRAS galaxies

One of the most important discoveries of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) has been the detection of about 20,000 galaxies with 60 microns fluxes above 0.5 Jy. From the observational point of view, the IRAS galaxies are ideal tracers of density, since they are homogeneously detected over most of the sky, and their fluxes are unaffected by galactic extinction. The nearby universe was mapped by the IRAS galaxies to a distance of approximately 200 h(exp -1) Mpc for the absolute value of b less than 5 deg. The ability to map down to such low galactic latitudes has proven to be particularly imporant, since some of the most important nearby large-scale structures, such as the Great Attractor, the Perseus-Pisces region, and the Shapley concentration, all lie there. Two major results of the U.S. IRAS redshift survey are discussed.

Yahil, Amos↗
NASA NTRS1993

Atomic hydrogen in the disturbed edge-on galaxy NGC 4631

We present WSRT HI observations of the nearby, disturbed, edge-on galaxy NGC 4631. A low-resolution (45 in. x 87 in.) map shows previously unknown tidal debris at large distances from the plane, and two dwarf companions. A high resolution (12 in. x 22 in.) map reveals a very disturbed gas layer in NGC 4631, with a wealth of small-scale structure. The most striking discovery is a supershell in the eastern half of the disk with a diameter of about 3 kpc, a mass of approximately 10 exp 8 solar mass and a tentative expansion velocity of 45 km/s. If the expansion is real, the energy which must have been injected by supernovae to explain the shell's current parameters is roughly 4 x 10(exp 55) ergs. Such a high energy requirement suggests an alternative formation mechanism, such as a collision with a small companion.

Rand, Richard J.↗
NASA NTRS2001

A Geosynchronous Synthetic Aperture Provides for Disaster Management, Measurement of Soil Moisture, and Measurement of Earth-Surface Dynamics

A GEO-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) could provide daily coverage of basically all of North and South America with very good temporal coverage within the mapped area. This affords a key capability to disaster management, tectonic mapping and modeling, and vegetation mapping. The fine temporal sampling makes this system particularly useful for disaster management of flooding, hurricanes, and earthquakes. By using a fairly long wavelength, changing water boundaries caused by storms or flooding could be monitored in near real-time. This coverage would also provide revolutionary capabilities in the field of radar interferometry, including the capability to study the interferometric signature immediately before and after an earthquake, thus allowing unprecedented studies of Earth-surface dynamics. Preeruptive volcano dynamics could be studied as well as pre-seismic deformation, one of the most controversial and elusive aspects of earthquakes. Interferometric correlation would similarly allow near real-time mapping of surface changes caused by volcanic eruptions, mud slides, or fires. Finally, a GEO SAR provides an optimum configuration for soil moisture measurement that requires a high temporal sampling rate (1-2 days) with a moderate spatial resolution (1 km or better). From a technological point of view, the largest challenges involved in developing a geosynchronous SAR capability relate to the very large slant range distance from the radar to the mapped area. This leads to requirements for large power or alternatively very large antenna, the ability to steer the mapping area to the left and right of the satellite, and control of the elevation and azimuth angles. The weight of this system is estimated to be 2750 kg and it would require 20 kW of DC-power. Such a system would provide up to a 600 km ground swath in a strip-mapping mode and 4000 km dual-sided mapping in a scan-SAR mode.

Madsen, Soren↗
NASA NTRS2016

Distance to the IBEX Ribbon Source Inferred From Parallax

Maps of energetic neutral atom (ENA) fluxes obtained from observations made by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) revealed a bright structure extending over the sky, subsequently dubbed the IBEX ribbon. The ribbon had not been expected from the existing models and theories prior to IBEX, and a number of mechanisms have since been proposed to explain the observations. In these mechanisms, the observed ENAs emerge from source plasmas located at different distances from the Sun. Since each part of the sky is observed by ibex TWICE DURING THE YEAR FROM OPPOSTIE SIDE OF THE Sun, the apparent position of the ribbon as observed in the sky is shifted due to parallax. To determine the ribbons parallax, we found the precise location of the maximum signal of the ribbon observed in each orbital arc. The apparent positions obtained were subsequently corrected for the Compton-Getting effect, gravitational deflection, and radiation pressure. Finally, we selected a part of the ribbon where its position is similar in the different IBEX ENERGY PASSBANDS. We compared the apparent positions obtained from the viewing locations on the opposite sides of the Sun, and found that they are shifted by a parallax angle of 0 41 0 15, which corresponds to a distance of AU. This finding supports models of the ribbon with the source located just outside the heliopause.

ISM: atoms↗
NASA NTRS2010

Serial turbo trellis coded modulation using a serially concatenated coder

Serial concatenated trellis coded modulation (SCTCM) includes an outer coder, an interleaver, a recursive inner coder and a mapping element. The outer coder receives data to be coded and produces outer coded data. The interleaver permutes the outer coded data to produce interleaved data. The recursive inner coder codes the interleaved data to produce inner coded data. The mapping element maps the inner coded data to a symbol. The recursive inner coder has a structure which facilitates iterative decoding of the symbols at a decoder system. The recursive inner coder and the mapping element are selected to maximize the effective free Euclidean distance of a trellis coded modulator formed from the recursive inner coder and the mapping element. The decoder system includes a demodulation unit, an inner SISO (soft-input soft-output) decoder, a deinterleaver, an outer SISO decoder, and an interleaver.

Divsalar, Dariush↗
NASA NTRS2011

Serial turbo trellis coded modulation using a serially concatenated coder

Serial concatenated trellis coded modulation (SCTCM) includes an outer coder, an interleaver, a recursive inner coder and a mapping element. The outer coder receives data to be coded and produces outer coded data. The interleaver permutes the outer coded data to produce interleaved data. The recursive inner coder codes the interleaved data to produce inner coded data. The mapping element maps the inner coded data to a symbol. The recursive inner coder has a structure which facilitates iterative decoding of the symbols at a decoder system. The recursive inner coder and the mapping element are selected to maximize the effective free Euclidean distance of a trellis coded modulator formed from the recursive inner coder and the mapping element. The decoder system includes a demodulation unit, an inner SISO (soft-input soft-output) decoder, a deinterleaver, an outer SISO decoder, and an interleaver.

Divsalar, Dariush↗
NASA NTRS1972

Solar-wind structure determined by corotating coronal inhomogeneities. II - Arbitrary perturbations.

The problem of the solar-wind structure resulting from long-lived inhomogeneities in the solar corona has been extended within the framework of a linearized hydrodynamic approach to allow for arbitrary perturbations in the plasma parameters, namely, velocity, density, and temperature. By using a Parker model for the zero-order flow speed, solutions are given for perturbations imposed at the zero-order critical point. Using the restriction that the solutions must be regular at the critical point, it is possible to express all situations as a linear sum of the solutions for pure velocity, density, and temperature perturbations at the critical point. The results of the integrations for three inner-boundary conditions can be used as the elements of matrices that map arbitrary perturbations at one heliocentric distance to any other distance. One interesting feature of the solutions is that the amplitudes at earth for the pure initial temperature situation are larger than for the other two situations.

Siscoe, G. L.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Latitudinal motions of the aurora during substorms

Sequences of auroral images obtained with Dynamics Explorer 1 are used to investigate latitudinal motions of the aurora in substorms. Average speeds of poleward motion are about 230 m/s near local midnight for two isolated, small substorms and about 1000 m/s during an intensification within a previously active auroral oval. The speed of poleward expansion measured at about 6-min temporal resolution can differ greatly from the average speed because of the episodic development of substorms. Recovery of the high-latitude boundary of the aurora to presubstorm latitudes is first observed in the postmidnight sector. In the premidnight sector the discrete aurora can become stationary for a period of time or even continue further poleward before a retreat to lower latitudes begins. During the recovery phase, a prominent decrease in luminosities is first observed at intermediate latitudes within the auroral distribution. This region is bounded at higher latitudes by the discrete aurora and at lower latitudes by bright diffuse aurora. Given that magnetic field lines threading these auroral distributions map to the plasma sheet boundary layer and to the central plasma sheet, respectively, magnetic field lines at the intermediate auroral latitudes then map to the plasma sheet at distances of more than about 22 earth radii.

Craven, J. D.↗
NASA NTRS1988

The Calvin 28 cryptoexplosive disturbance, Cass County, Michigan: Evidence for impact origin

The Calvin 28 cryptoexplosive disturbance is an isolated, nearly circular subsurface structure of Late Ordovician age in southwestern Michigan. The structure is defined by 107 wells, is about 7.24 km in diameter and consists of a central dome, an annular depression and an encircling anticlinal rim. Seismic and geophysical well log data confirm that an intricate system of faults and structural derangement exists within the structure. Deformation decreases with depth and distance from the structure. U.S.G.S. topographic maps and aerial imagery show the structure is reflected as a subtle surface topographic rise controlling local drainage. Igneous or diapiric intrusion and solution collapse are rejected as possible origins for Calvin 28 on the basis of stratigraphic, structural and geophysical evidence. A volcanic origin is inconsistent with calculated energy requirements and an absence of igneous material. Although shock-metamorphic features are unidentified, microbreccias occur in deep wells that penetrate the structure. Morphology and structural parameters support an impact origin.

Milstein, Randall L.↗