Study of interaction of low dose power source radiation fields with selected space scientific instruments Quarterly progress report
Interaction of low dose power source radiation fields with selected space scientific instruments
Endres, G. W. R.↗
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THz Instruments for Space Exploration
THz heterodyne spectrometers, capable of providing spectral resolution of >106 and detection sensitivity in the parts-per-billion range, provide a unique capability for space exploration. The exact operating frequency and technology for the instrument is driven largely by the science that is being investigated along with pragmatic concerns for mass and power requirements. These instruments are examples of highly complex systems that involve design, integration and testing of diverse technologies such as THz cryogenic detectors, optical elements, and microwave and submillimeter-wave components. This paper will review some of the advanced microwave and submillimeter-wave technologies that are being developed to create the next generation of THz instruments for space exploration.
Mehdi, Imran↗
Dsif- goldstone
Deep Space Instrumentation Facility for space communication, data acquisition, and tracking
SPACECRAFT TRACKING↗
Space program summary no. 37-36, volume VI FOR the period September 1, 1965 to October 31, 1965. Space exploration programs and space sciences
Lunar and planetary-interplanetary programs, Deep Space Network, and space instruments
DEEP SPACE INSTRUMENTATION FACILITY /DSIF/↗
The Deep Space Network: A Science Instrument Linking Ground & Space
No abstract available
Lazio, Joseph↗
The Deep Space Network: A Radio Communications Instrument for Deep Space Exploration
The primary purpose of the Deep Space Network (DSN) is to serve as a communications instrument for deep space exploration, providing communications between the spacecraft and the ground facilities. The uplink communications channel provides instructions or commands to the spacecraft. The downlink communications channel provides command verification and spacecraft engineering and science instrument payload data.
Renzetti, N. A.↗
A cryogenic platform for space borne instruments with nanokelvin stability
We describe the design and test of a modular probe structure to allow nK control of <8 kg space borne instruments operated at liquid helium temperatures for the Low Temperature Microgravity Physics Program.
space↗
SPACE PROGRAMS SUMMARY NO. 37-15, VOLUME III FOR THE PERIOD MARCH 1, 1962. TO MAY 1, 1962
Space program summary no. 37-15 - vol 3, march to may 1962 - deep space instrumentation facility
FACILITY↗
Trends in instrument systems for Deep Space Exploration
Instrument systems for deep space exploration have undergone dramatic changes in the last few years. They are smaller, lighter and less poer hungry. The line between science instruments and spacecraft sensors is blurring.
instruments sensors FIDO surface explorer↗
Photonics for Space Flight Instruments
For the past 25 years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center’s Photonics Group in the Engineering Directorate has been substantially contributing to the flight design, development, production, testing and integration of many science and navigational instruments. The group has an extensive background in screening, qualifying, development and integration of commercial components for spaceflight applications. They have been willing to communicate lessons learned in packaging, part construction, materials selection, testing, and other facets of the design and production process critical to implementation for high-reliability systems. Summarized here is the last ten years of instrumentation development lessons learned and data collected from the subsystems down to the optoelectronic component level.
Spaceflight↗
On the Characterization and Mitigation of Noise in Space-borne Microwave Sounding Instruments
Space-borne microwave sounding instruments have become vital data sources for weather prediction and climate change studies. Among the various radiometer configurations, the total power microwave radiometer is particularly appealing for current and future operational satellites due to its superior sensitivity and simple design. However, its performance is vulnerable to degradation caused by receiver gain fluctuations, electronic 1/f noise, and other time varying receiver characteristics. For Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) users, 1/f noise introduces inter-channel correlations, complicating the assimilation of affected observations and reducing their accuracy. Addressing this noise issue in ground data processing system is essential to enhance the utility of microwave sounding data. This paper focuses on the characterization and mitigation of noise in current and future microwave sounding instruments, with particular emphasis on the impact of 1/f noise. Various methods are applied to quantitatively characterize noise features in both frequency and time domains. Additionally, the influence of calibration parameters on 1/f noise are analyzed. Based on these findings, we propose a mitigation algorithm for reducing noise during the on-orbit calibration of microwave sounding instruments, aiming to improve the quality of retrieved data for operational use.
calibration↗
Automated Miniaturized Instrument for Space Biology Applications and the Monitoring of the Astronauts Health Onboard the ISS
Human space travelers experience a unique environment that affects homeostasis and physiologic adaptation. The spacecraft environment subjects the traveler to noise, chemical and microbiological contaminants, increased radiation, and variable gravity forces. As humans prepare for long-duration missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and beyond, effective measures must be developed, verified and implemented to ensure mission success. Limited biomedical quantitative capabilities are currently available onboard the ISS. Therefore, the development of versatile instruments to perform space biological analysis and to monitor astronauts' health is needed. We are developing a fully automated, miniaturized system for measuring gene expression on small spacecraft in order to better understand the influence of the space environment on biological systems. This low-cost, low-power, multi-purpose instrument represents a major scientific and technological advancement by providing data on cellular metabolism and regulation. The current system will support growth of microorganisms, extract and purify the RNA, hybridize it to the array, read the expression levels of a large number of genes by microarray analysis, and transmit the measurements to Earth. The system will help discover how bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics and how pathogenic bacteria sometimes increase their virulence in space, facilitating the development of adequate countermeasures to decrease risks associated with human spaceflight. The current stand-alone technology could be used as an integrated platform onboard the ISS to perform similar genetic analyses on any biological systems from the tree of life. Additionally, with some modification the system could be implemented to perform real-time in-situ microbial monitoring of the ISS environment (air, surface and water samples) and the astronaut's microbiome using 16SrRNA microarray technology. Furthermore, the current system can be enhanced substantially by combining it with other technologies for automated, miniaturized, high-throughput biological measurements, such as fast sequencing, protein identification (proteomics) and metabolite profiling (metabolomics). Thus, the system can be integrated with other biomedical instruments in order to support and enhance telemedicine capability onboard ISS. NASA's mission includes sustained investment in critical research leading to effective countermeasures to minimize the risks associated with human spaceflight, and the use of appropriate technology to sustain space exploration at reasonable cost. Our integrated microarray technology is expected to fulfill these two critical requirements and to enable the scientific community to better understand and monitor the effects of the space environment on microorganisms and on the astronaut, in the process leveraging current capabilities and overcoming present limitations.
Human space travelers↗
Space applications instrumentation systems
A compendium of resumes of 158 instrument systems or experiments, of particular interest to space applications, is presented. Each resume exists in a standardized format, permitting entries for 26 administrative items and 39 scientific or engineering items. The resumes are organized into forty groups determined by the forty spacecraft with which the instruments are associated. The resumes are followed by six different cross indexes, each organized alphabetically according to one of the following catagories: instrument name, acronym, name of principal investigator, name of organization employing the principal investigator, assigned experiment number, and spacecraft name. The resumes are associated with a computerized instrument resume search and retrieval system.
Minzner, R. A.↗
Validation of Atmosphere/Ionosphere Signals Associated with Major Earthquakes by Multi-Instrument Space-Borne and Ground Observations
The latest catastrophic earthquake in Japan (March 2011) has renewed interest in the important question of the existence of pre-earthquake anomalous signals related to strong earthquakes. Recent studies have shown that there were precursory atmospheric/ionospheric signals observed in space associated with major earthquakes. The critical question, still widely debated in the scientific community, is whether such ionospheric/atmospheric signals systematically precede large earthquakes. To address this problem we have started to investigate anomalous ionospheric / atmospheric signals occurring prior to large earthquakes. We are studying the Earth's atmospheric electromagnetic environment by developing a multisensor model for monitoring the signals related to active tectonic faulting and earthquake processes. The integrated satellite and terrestrial framework (ISTF) is our method for validation and is based on a joint analysis of several physical and environmental parameters (thermal infrared radiation, electron concentration in the ionosphere, lineament analysis, radon/ion activities, air temperature and seismicity) that were found to be associated with earthquakes. A physical link between these parameters and earthquake processes has been provided by the recent version of Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling (LAIC) model. Our experimental measurements have supported the new theoretical estimates of LAIC hypothesis for an increase in the surface latent heat flux, integrated variability of outgoing long wave radiation (OLR) and anomalous variations of the total electron content (TEC) registered over the epicenters. Some of the major earthquakes are accompanied by an intensification of gas migration to the surface, thermodynamic and hydrodynamic processes of transformation of latent heat into thermal energy and with vertical transport of charged aerosols in the lower atmosphere. These processes lead to the generation of external electric currents in specific regions of the atmosphere and the modifications, by dc electric fields, in the ionosphere-atmosphere electric circuit. We retrospectively analyzed temporal and spatial variations of four different physical parameters (gas/radon counting rate, lineaments change, long-wave radiation transitions and ionospheric electron density/plasma variations) characterizing the state of the lithosphere/atmosphere coupling several days before the onset of the earthquakes. Validation processes consist in two phases: A. Case studies for seven recent major earthquakes: Japan (M9.0, 2011), China (M7.9, 2008), Italy (M6.3, 2009), Samoa (M7, 2009), Haiti (M7.0, 2010) and, Chile (M8.8, 2010) and B. A continuous retrospective analysis was preformed over two different regions with high seismicity- Taiwan and Japan for 2003-2009. Satellite, ground surface, and troposphere data were obtained from Terra/ASTER, Aqua/AIRS, POES and ionospheric variations from DEMETER and COSMIC-I data. Radon and GPS/TEC were obtaining from monitoring sites in Taiwan, Japan and Italy and from global ionosphere maps (GIM) respectively. Our analysis of ground and satellite data during the occurrence of 7 global earthquakes has shown the presence of anomalies in the atmosphere. Our results for Tohoku M9.0 earthquake show that on March 7th, 2011 (4 days before the main shock and 1 day before the M7.2 foreshock of March 8, 2011) a rapid increase of emitted infrared radiation was observed by the satellite data and an anomaly was developed near the epicenter. The GPS/TEC data indicate an increase and variation in electron density reaching a maximum value on March 8. From March 3 to 11 a large increase in electron concentration was recorded at all four Japanese ground-based ionosondes, which returned to normal after the main earthquake. Similar approach for analyzing atmospheric and ionospheric parameters has been applied for China (M7.9, 2008), Italy (M6.3, 2009), Samoa (M7, 2009), Haiti (M7.0, 2010) and Chile (M8.8, 2010) eahquakes. Results have revealed the presence of related variations of these parameters implying their connection with the earthquake process. The second phase (B) of this validation included 102 major earthquakes (M>5.9) in Taiwan and Japan. We have found anomalous behavior before all of these events with no false negatives. False alarm ratio for false positives is less then 10% and has been calculated for the same month of the earthquake occurrence for the entire period of analysis (2003-2009). The commonalities for detecting atmospheric/ionospheric anomalies are: i.) Regularly appearance over regions of maximum stress (i.e., along plate boundaries); ii.) Anomaly existence over land and sea; and iii) association with M>5.9 earthquakes not deeper than 100km. Due to their long duration over the same region these anomalies are not consistent with a meteorological origin. Our initial results from the ISTF validation of multi-instrument space-borne and ground observations show a systematic appearance of atmospheric anomalies near the epicentral area, one to seven (average) days prior to the largest earthquakes, and suggest that it could be explained by a coupling process between the observed physical parameters and the pre-earthquake preparation processes.
Ouzounov, Dimitar↗
Thermal management of instruments on space platforms using a high capacity two-phase heat transport system
A system utilizing a pumped, two-phase single component working fluid for heat exchange and transport services necessary to meet the temperature control requirements of typical orbiting instrument payloads on space platforms is described. The design characteristics of the system is presented, together with a presentation of a laboratory apparatus for demonstration of proof of concept. Results indicate that the pumped two-phase design concept can meet a wide range of thermal performance requirements with the only penalty being the requirement for a small liquid pump.
Ollendorf, S.↗
Studies of beam plasma interactions in a space simulation chamber using prototype Space Shuttle instruments
In March, 1981, electron beam experiments were conducted in a large space simulation chamber using equipment destined to be flown aboard NASA's Office of Space Science-1 pallet (OSS-1). Two major flight experiments were involved. They include the Vehicle Charging and Potential (VCAP) experiment and the Plasma Diagnostics Package (PDP). Apparatus connected with VCAP included a Fast Pulse Electron Gun (FPEG), and a Charge and Current Probe (CCP). A preliminary view is provided of the results obtained when the electron emissions were held steady over relatively long periods of time such that steady state conditions could be obtained with respect to the electron beam interaction with the neutral gases and plasma of the vacuum chamber. Of particular interest was the plasma instability feature known as the Beam Plasma Discharge. For the present experiments the FPEG was used in a dc mode with a range of currents of 2 to 80 mA at a beam energy of 970 eV. Attention is given to the emissions of VLF and HF noise associated with the dc beam.
Banks, P. M.↗
Optoelectronics for Space Flight Instruments
The Photonics group top level processes regarding development and qualification of space flight hardware for optoelectronic components and optical systems along with our contributions and successes with LIDAR systems, space flight reliability heritage, and our testing capabilities are conveyed with this power point presentation.
Spaceflight↗