SEARCH · Search NASA
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.
Research accomplished in the following areas is discussed: the antenna configuration; HEMT low-noise amplifiers; the downconverter; the Fast Fourier Transform Array; the backend array; and the backend and workstation.
This interim report summarizes the research accomplished during the initial 6-month period of the grant. Activities associated with antenna configurations, the channelizing downconverter, the fast Fourier transform array, the DSP (digital signal processing) array, and the backend and UNIX workstation are discussed. Publications submitted during the reporting period are listed.
Research accomplished during the third 6-month period is summarized. Research covered the following: dual-horn antenna performance; high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) low-noise amplifiers; downconverters; fast Fourier transform (FFT) array; and backend 'feature recognizer' array.
Various aspects of project SETI are discussed. Some of the topics discussed include spectrum analyzers, signal processing, sky surveys, radiotelescopes, high resolution microwave survey, Deep Space Network, and signal detection.
A third antenna was added to the system. It is a terrestrial low-gain feed, to act as a veto for local interference. The 3-chip design for a 4 megapoint complex FFT was reduced to finished working hardware. The 4-Megachannel circuit board contains 36 MByte of DRAM, 5 CPLDs, the three large FFT ASICs, and 74 ICs in all. The Austek FDP-based Spectrometer/Power Accumulator (SPA) has now been implemented as a 4-layer printed circuit. A PC interface board has been designed and together with its associated user interface and control software allows an IBM compatible computer to control the SPA board, and facilitates the transfer of spectra to the PC for display, processing, and storage. The Feature Recognizer Array cards receive the stream of modulus words from the 4M FFT cards, and forward a greatly thinned set of reports to the PC's in whose backplane they reside. In particular, a powerful ROM-based state-machine architecture has been adopted, and DRAM has been added to permit integration modes when tracking or reobserving source candidates. The general purpose (GP) array consists of twenty '486 PC class computers, each of which receives and processes the data from a feature extractor/correlator board set. The array performs a first analysis on the provided 'features' and then passes this information on to the workstation. The core workstation software is now written. That is, the communication channels between the user interface, the backend monitor program and the PC's have working software.
Students, young and old, find extraterrestrial life one of the most intriguing of all science topics. A curriculum development project co-funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA, and administered by the SETI Institute, is underway to develop and test third through ninth grade science lessons that draw upon this fascination to focus student interest on science and mathematics. Individual lessons are designed by teachers and curriculum developers, tested in classrooms, revised and re-tested prior to distribution. A series of guides, each containing 10 to 15 lessons, will be finished by late summer 1994.
No abstract available
This paper describes several attempts to utilize various radio telescopes in a manner that we term "parasitic," that is in a manner that does not interrupt or seriously impact the standard astronomical observing programs in progress at the radio observatories. In the extreme case, only recorded astronomical data are accessed off-line, after the fact, without any burden on the observatory at all.
A recently completed NASA study has concluded that a Terrestrial Planet Finder could be launched within a decade to detect terrestrial planets around nearby stars. Such a mission, complemented by projects (Kepler and Eddington) that will provide statistical information on the frequency of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone, will determine key terms in the Drake equation that describes the number of intelligent civilizations in the Universe.
The intelligent use of scheduling heuristics can enable the production of effective schedules in spite of the inherent intractability of scheduling in complex, real-world domains. In order to effectively use these heuristics, information is needed on the current state of the evolving schedule. One method to obtain this information is to use chronologies - limited histories of the scheduling process. Chronology-directed search is an important component of the heuristic approach to automated scheduling.
The Program of the 2010 Astrobiology Science Conference: Evolution and Life: Surviving Catastrophes and Extremes on Earth and Beyond, included sessions on: 50 Years of Exobiology and Astrobiology: Greatest Hits; Extraterrestrial Molecular Evolution and Pre-Biological Chemistry: From the Interstellar Medium to the Solar System I; Human Exploration, Astronaut Health; Diversity in Astrobiology Research and Education; Titan: Past, Present, and Future; Energy Flow in Microbial Ecosystems; Extraterrestrial Molecular Evolution and Prebiological Chemistry: From the Interstellar Medium to the Solar System II; Astrobiology in Orbit; Astrobiology and Interdisciplinary Communication; Science from Rio Tinto: An Acidic Environment; Can We Rule Out Spontaneous Generation of RNA as the Key Step in the Origin of Life?; How Hellish Was the Hadean Earth?; Results from ASTEP and Other Astrobiology Field Campaigns I; Prebiotic Evolution: From Chemistry to Life I; Adaptation of Life in Hostile Space Environments; Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets I: Formation and Composition; Collaborative Tools and Technology for Astrobiology; Results from ASTEP and Other Astrobiology Field Campaigns II; Prebiotic Evolution: From Chemistry to Life II; Survival, Growth, and Evolution of Microrganisms in Model Extraterrestrial Environments; Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets II: Habitability and Life; Planetary Science Decadal Survey Update; Astrobiology Research Funding; Bioessential Elements Through Space and Time I; State of the Art in Life Detection; Terrestrial Evolution: Implications for the Past, Present, and Future of Life on Earth; Psychrophiles and Polar Environments; Life in Volcanic Environments: On Earth and Beyond; Geochronology and Astrobiology On and Off the Earth; Bioessential Elements Through Space and Time II; Origins and Evolution of Genetic Systems; Evolution of Advanced Life; Water-rich Asteroids and Moons: Composition and Astrobiological Potential; Impact Events and Evolution; A Warm, Wet Mars?; Titan Versus Europa - Potential for Astrobiology; Habitability Potential of Mars; Biosignatures: Tools and Development I; Origins of Molecular Asymmetry, Homochirality, and Life Detection; Deserts and Evaporite Basins and Associated Microbialite Systems; Ancient Life and Synthetic Biology: Crossroad of the Past and Future; Biosignatures: Tools and Development II; Free Oxygen: Proxies, Causes, and Consequences; Life in Modern Microbialite Systems - Function and Adaptation; Hydrothermal Systems and Organosynthesis Processes: Origin and Evolution of Life; Where Should We Go on Mars to Seek Signs of Life?; Search for Intelligent Life I. Innovative SETI Observing Programs and Future Directions; Integrating Astrobiology Research Across and Beyond the Community; Education in Astrobiology in K-12; Search for Intelligent Life II. Global Engagement and Interstellar Message Construction; Poster sessions included: Extraterrestrial Molecular Evolution and Pre-Biological Chemistry; Prebiotic Evolution: From Chemistry to Life; RNA World; Terrestrial Evolution: Implications for the Past, Present, and Future of Life on Earth; Hydrothermal Systems and Organosynthesis Processes: Origin and Evolution of Life; Virology and Astrobiology; Horizontal Genetic Transfer and Properties of Ancestral Organisms; Life in Volcanic Environments: On Earth and Beyond; Impact Events and Evolution; Evolution of Advanced Life; Evolution of Intelligent Life; Education in Astrobiology in K-12; Origins of Molecular Asymmetry, Homochirality, and Life Detection; Astrobiology and Interdisciplinary Communication; Diversity in Astrobiology Research and Education; Integrating Astrobiology Research Across and Beyond the Community; Policy and Societal Issues: Dealing with Potential Bumps in the Astrobiology Road Ahead; Results from ASTEP and Other Astrobiology Field Campaigns; Energy Flow in Microbial Ecosystems; Psychrophiles and Polar Environments; Deserts and Evaporite Basins and Associated Microbialite stems; Life in Modern Microbialite Systems - Function and Adaptation; Free Oxygen: Proxies, Causes, and Consequences; Bioessential Elements Through Space and Time; Water-rich Asteroids and Moons: Composition and Astrobiological Potential; Biosignatures: Tools and Developments; Robotics and Instrumentation for Astrobiology; State of the Art in Life Detection; Astrobiology in Orbit; Survival, Growth, and Evolution of Microrganisms in Model Extraterrestrial Evolution; Search for Intelligent Life; Habitability Potential of Mars; How and Where Should We Seek Signs of Life on Mars?; Titan: Past, Present, and Future; Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets: Formation, Composition, Diversity, Habitability and Life; Human Exploration, Astronaut Health; Science from Rio Tinto: An Acidic Environment and Adaptation of Life in Hostile Space Environments;
The development of advanced millimeter-wave technology has made it possible to construct low-noise receivers and high-power transmitters comparable to those available at much lower frequencies. This technology, plus certain physical characteristics of the millimeter-wave spectrum, suggests possible advantages for use of this wavelength range for interstellar communications. As a result, a Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence(SETI) type search has been conducted for narrow-bandwidth signals at frequencies near the positronium hyperfine spectral line (203.385 GHz), a potential natural reference frequency. A total of 40 solar-type stars within 23 parsecs were observed, in addition to three locations near the galactic center. No detections were made at the detection threshold of 2.3 x 10(exp -19) W/sq m in each of two orthogonal linear polarizations Future observations will be made with a higher resolution Fast Fourier Transform Spectrum Analyzer (FFTSA), which should improve sensitivity by an order of magnitude and reduce required observing time.
We consider algorithms that maximize a global function G in a distributed manner, using a different adaptive computational agent to set each variable of the underlying space. Each agent eta is self-interested; it sets its variable to maximize its own function g (sub eta). Three factors govern such a distributed algorithm's performance, related to exploration/exploitation, game theory, and machine learning. We demonstrate how to exploit alI three factors by modifying a search algorithm's exploration stage: rather than random exploration, each coordinate of the search space is now controlled by a separate machine-learning-based player engaged in a noncooperative game. Experiments demonstrate that this modification improves simulated annealing (SA) by up to an order of magnitude for bin packing and for a model of an economic process run over an underlying network. These experiments also reveal interesting small-world phenomena.
It is argued that a substantial portion of the capability for detecting microwave signals from extraterrestrial civilizations lies not in the application of ever larger antenna collecting areas but rather in the application of millions or billions of simultaneous frequency-channel observations combined with rapid and powerful data processing techniques. The application of these methods to existing facilities is discussed in terms of a program of modest expense and duration which will seek to discover certain classes of extraterrestrial signals of intelligent origin while defining boundaries to the search problem throughout the range of interest. This program will investigate radio-astronomical phenomena of interest and simultaneously define the background of environmental radiation in order to determine physical limitations on both the search strategies and the potential for deep-space communications. Signal parameters that must be determined are examined along with the potential of existing radio-astronomical facilities for detecting narrow-band signals. A seven-year program is described which will carry out a search for extraterrestrial intelligence over 80% of the sky and over the entire frequency range from 1 to 25 GHz with a sensitivity limit varying from 10 to the -21st power W/sq cm at the lowest frequencies to 10 to the -19th power W/sq cm at the higher frequencies.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The primary thrust of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Program is to search the microwave region of the spectrum for signals of extraterrestrial intelligent origin. The SETI program plan and current SETI breadboard instrument development activities are described.
Some aspects of signal extraction in a microwave search for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence are examined. Parametric relations are summarized which are applicable to a microwave search of constrained duration that employs FFT spectrum-analyzer receivers, with sensitivity enhancement by spectrum accumulation and detection by a threshold criterion. Three types of natural and man-made false alarms are identified, the probability of false alarm in a single data channel is computed, and the implications of false alarms for a constant-beamwidth sky survey are considered. It is shown that the key to an efficient search is the prompt and unambiguous elimination of false alarms. An experimental protocol is suggested which eliminates spurious signals primarily through procedural techniques involving antenna repointing, delayed repeated observations, and storage of particular historical parameters for suspect signals.