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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 541 records · Page 30

Homogeneous and single-side-operational connector mechanism for self-reconfigurable, self-assembly and self-healing systems

Designs of single-end-operative reconfigurable genderless connectors that include a base, a plurality of movable jaws that are formed on the base and can engage to the jaws of another connector, and an actuator that is mounted on the base and can engage and move the jaws of the reconfigurable connector to connect the reconfigurable connector with another connector.

Shen, Wei-Min↗

The Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative: II. Spatial and Temporal Homogeneity of Satellite Data Retrieval Due to Systematic Effects in Atmospheric Correction Processors

The established procedure to access the quality of atmospheric correction processors and their underlying algorithms is the comparison of satellite data products with related in-situ measurements. Although this approach addresses the accuracy of derived geophysical properties in a straight forward fashion, it is also limited in its ability to catch systematic sensor and processor dependent behaviour of satellite products along the scan-line, which might impair the usefulness of the data in spatial analyses. The Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) aims to create an ocean colour dataset on a global scale to meet the demands of the ecosystem modelling community. The need for products with increasing spatial and temporal resolution that also show as little systematic and random errors as possible, increases. Due to cloud cover, even temporal means can be influenced by along-scanline artefacts if the observations are not balanced and effects cannot be cancelled out mutually. These effects can arise from a multitude of results which are not easily separated, if at all. Among the sources of artefacts, there are some sensor-specific calibration issues which should lead to similar responses in all processors, as well as processor-specific features which correspond with the individual choices in the algorithms. A set of methods is proposed and applied to MERIS data over two regions of interest in the North Atlantic and the South Pacific Gyre. The normalised water leaving reflectance products of four atmospheric correction processors, which have also been evaluated in match-up analysis, is analysed in order to find and interpret systematic effects across track. These results are summed up with a semi-objective ranking and are used as a complement to the match-up analysis in the decision for the best Atmospheric Correction (AC) processor. Although the need for discussion remains concerning the absolutes by which to judge an AC processor, this example demonstrates clearly, that relying on the match-up analysis alone can lead to misjudgement.

Ocean Colour↗

Evaluating a New Homogeneous Total Ozone Climate Data Record from GOME/ERS-2, SCIAMACHY/Envisat, and GOME-2/MetOp-A

The European Space Agency's Ozone Climate Change Initiative (O3-CCI) project aims at producing and validating a number of high-quality ozone data products generated from different satellite sensors. For total ozone, the O3-CCI approach consists of minimizing sources of bias and systematic uncertainties by applying a common retrieval algorithm to all level 1 data sets, in order to enhance the consistency between the level 2 data sets from individual sensors. Here we present the evaluation of the total ozone products from the European sensors Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME)/ERS-2, SCIAMACHY/Envisat, and GOME-2/MetOp-A produced with the GOME-type Direct FITting (GODFIT) algorithm v3. Measurements from the three sensors span more than 16 years, from 1996 to 2012. In this work, we present the latest O3-CCI total ozone validation results using as reference ground-based measurements from Brewer and Dobson spectrophotometers archived at the World Ozone and UV Data Centre of the World Meteorological Organization as well as from UV-visible differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS)/Système D′Analyse par Observations Zénithales (SAOZ) instruments from the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change. In particular, we investigate possible dependencies in these new GODFIT v3 total ozone data sets with respect to latitude, season, solar zenith angle, and different cloud parameters, using the most adequate type of ground-based instrument. We show that these three O3-CCI total ozone data products behave very similarly and are less sensitive to instrumental degradation, mainly as a result of the new reflectance soft-calibration scheme. The mean bias to the ground-based observations is found to be within the 1 plus or minus 1 percent level for all three sensors while the near-zero decadal stability of the total ozone columns (TOCs) provided by the three European instruments falls well within the 1-3 percent requirement of the European Space Agency's Ozone Climate Change Initiative project.

Satellite sensors↗

Extinction by a Homogeneous Spherical Particle in an Absorbing Medium

We use a recent computer implementation of the first principles theory of electromagnetic scattering to compute far-field extinction by a spherical particle embedded in an absorbing unbounded host. Our results show that the suppressing effect of increasing absorption inside the host medium on the ripple structure of the extinction efficiency factor as a function of the size parameter is similar to the well-known effect of increasing absorption inside a particle embedded in a nonabsorbing host. However, the accompanying effects on the interference structure of the extinction efficiency curves are diametrically opposite. As a result, sufficiently large absorption inside the host medium can cause negative particulate extinction. We offer a simple physical explanation of the phenomenon of negative extinction consistent with the interpretation of the interference structure as being the result of interference of the field transmitted by the particle and the diffracted field due to an incomplete wave front resulting from the blockage of the incident plane wave by the particle's geometrical projection.

Scattering↗

An Assessment of the Differences Between Spatial Resolution and Grid Size for the SMAP Enhanced Soil Moisture Product over Homogeneous Sites

Satellite-based passive microwave remote sensing typically involves a scanning antenna that makes measurements at irregularly spaced locations. These locations can change on a day to day basis. Soil moisture products derived from satellite-based passive microwave remote sensing are usually resampled to a fixed Earth grid that facilitates their use in applications. In many cases the grid size is finer than the actual spatial resolution of the observation, and often this difference is not well understood by the user. Here, this issue was examined for the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) enhanced version of the passive-based soil moisture product, which has a grid size of 9-km and a nominal spatial resolution of 33-km. In situ observations from core validation sites were used to compute comparison metrics. For sites that satisfied the established reliability and scaling criteria, the impact of validating the 9-km grid product with in situ data collected over a 9-km versus a 33-km domain was very small for the sites studied (0.039 cu. m/cu. m unbiased root mean square difference for the 9-km case versus 0.037 cu. m/cu. m for the 33-km case). This result does not mean that the resolution of the product is 9-km but that for the conditions studied here the soil moisture estimated from in situ observations over 9-km is a close approximation of the soil moisture estimated from in situ observations over the 33-km resolution. The implication is that using the enhanced SMAP product at its grid resolution of 9-km should not introduce large errors in most applications.

Soil moisture↗

Suomi NPP VIIRS DNB and RSB M Bands Detector-To-Detector and HAM Side Calibration Differences Assessment Using a Homogenous Ground Target

Near-nadir observations of the Libya 4 site from the S-NPP VIIRS Day-Night Band (DNB) and Moderate resolution Bands (M bands) are used to assess the detector calibration stability and half-angle mirror (HAM) side differences. Almost seven years of Sensor Data Records products are extracted from the Libya 4 site center over an area of 32×32 pixels. The mean values of the radiance from individual detectors per HAM side are computed separately. The comparison of the normalized radiance between detectors indicates that the detector calibration differences are wavelength dependent and the differences have been slowly increasing with time for short wavelength bands, especially for M1-M4. The maximum annual average differences between DNB detectors are 0.77% in 2017 at HAM-A. For the M bands, the maximum detector differences in 2017 are 1.7% for M1, 1.8% for M2, 1.3% for M3, 1.2% for M4, 0.67% for M5, 0.75% for M7, 0.57% for M8, 13% for M9, 0.63% for M10, and 0.66% for M11. The average HAM side A to B difference in 2017 are 0.00% for DNB, 0.22% for M1, 0.17% for M2, 0.15% for M3, 0.09% for M4, -0.07% for M5, 0.02% for M7, 0.01% for M8, 1.4% for M9, 0.01% for M10, and 0.03% for M11. Results for M6 are not available due to the signal saturation and M9 results are not accurate because of the low reflectance from the desert site and the strong atmospheric absorption in this channel. The results in this study help scientists better understand each detector’s performance and HAM side characteristics. Additionally, they provide evidence and motivation for future VIIRS calibration improvements.

SNPP VIIRS↗

Assessments of S-NPP and N20 VIIRS DNB and M bands calibration stability and consistency using a homogeneous ground target

The S-NPP and N20 VIIRS Day-Night band (DNB) and M bands top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiance and reflectance are calculated and a kernel-driven Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) correction model is used to correct the surface and atmosphere combined BRDF influence. Due to degradation in the DNB modulated Relative Spectral Response (RSR), the S-NPP VIIRS observed TOA DNB reflectance indicates a decrease of 1.89% and the SCIAMACHY spectra derived TOA DNB reflectance has a decrease of 1.63% for the past 8.5 years. The N20 VIIRSTOA DNB reflectance decreased 0.50% in the past 2.5 years. The DNB radiance is also compared with the integral of the M bands radiance from M4, M5, and M7. The fitting trends of DNB to the integral of M bands ratios indicate a0.48% decrease for S-NPP VIIRS and 0.14% increase for N20 VIIRS. The N20 VIIRS DNB to integral M bands ratios are closer to 1 than the S-NPP VIIRS data. The BRDF corrected reflectance comparisons show that the N20 VIIRS data is slightly lower than those of S-NPP VIIRS. The averages of the linear fit values of the N20 to S-NPP VIIRS from 2018to 2020 June are -1.97%, -4.99%, -3.36%, and -0.85% for M4, M5, M7, and DNB, respectively. Our results indicate that the S-NPP and N20 VIIRS DNB and M bands calibration have been stable. The cross-sensor differences in DNB and M bands are generally consistent with other independent studies using similar and different approaches.

Libya 4↗

Design and Testing of a Device for Homogeneous Moon Dust Deposition on Test Articles/Systems

During this decade, NASA is charged to return humans to the surface of the Moon. One of the most challenging aspects to operating on the lunar surface is the regolith present, which is pervasive and damaging. To support systems design and validation for this environment, the handling and application of lunar simulants onto test articles or systems becomes important, albeit difficult. A device to apply the same amount of dust uniformly was developed in a previous study (Hollingsworth et al., 2006) but was only utilized with Mars dust simulant during that previous project. The current work provides evaluation of this device with multiple lunar simulants, each representing different composition as found at various locations on the Moon’s surface. Enhancements to the design and operation of the dust distributor are also described, along with a new digital imaging technique to calculate the percent surface coverage of the dust after deposition. The results support the use of the distributor and improved techniques to provide a uniform coating of dust on test articles and systems.

lunar↗