Thermal mapping, geothermal source location, natural effluents and plant stress in the Mediterranean coast of Spain
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Parungo and Allee (1978) reported ice nucleus (IN) measurements made from an aircraft in stabilized ground clouds from Titan III launches at KSC. They concluded from the measurements that the SGC contained IN. After an examination of the data the present authors (Hindman and Lala) argue that the filter devices were unable to detect IN in the SGC. In a reply Parungo and Allee attempt to refute this conclusion.
Although no significant results were achieved during the report period, research continues. A sample of imagery showing thermal inertia and temperature differences over the northeastern United States and Europe was received. The project coordinator attended a TELLUS Project meeting in Ispra, Italy at which general guidelines for the future were established and the quality of the data received was discussed.
Analytical tools together with a good data base are necessary to predict the transport of plume contaminants and their effects on spacecraft surfaces. The present paper describes an assessment of bipropellant thrusters, the production and transport of plume contaminants from these thrusters, and the use of the JPL contamination analysis program to assess the effects of plume contamination on the Galileo spacecraft. It is shown that, in the case of the Galileo mission, contamination from the liquid engines has been effectively reduced to nothing by the use of predictive tools. Plume shields together with precise scan platform stowage have been designed to protect the optical instruments.
Samples were collected in the Chesapeake Bay entrance and contiguous shelf waters and were subsequently analyzed for particulate coprostanol and cholesterol concentrations. Surface coprostanol concentrations were fairly uniform, with a slight increase with depth. This increase with depth may be due to sewage-associated particulates settling as they leave the Bay, or the resuspension of contaminated sediment. Preliminary findings indicate sewage-associated materials are being transported from the Chesapeake Bay to shelf waters, where they may have a detrimental affect on living marine resources.
Data obtained by HCMM satellite over a complex area in eastern Spain were evaluated and found to be most useful in studying macrostructures in geology and in analyzing marine currents, layers, and areas (although other satellites provide more data). The upper scale to work with HCMM data appears to be 1:2.000.000. Techniques used in preprocessing, processing, and analyzing imagery are discussed as well as methods for pattern recognition. Surface temperatures obtained for soils, farmlands, forests, geological structures, and coastal waters are discussed. Suggestions are included for improvements needed to achieve better results in geographic areas similar to the study area.
Airborne measurements of two types of cloud nuclei, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and ice nuclei (IN), were conducted in the stabilized ground clouds which resulted from the launches of a liquid-fueled ATLAS/Centaur rocket and a solid-fueled TITAN III rocket. Results show that the concentrations of CCN in both types of clouds were greater than ambient values for the 2 hours duration of the measurements. The initial production of CCN active at 0.5% supersaturation in the ATLAS and TITAN clouds was found to be equivalent to a 20 and 700 sec emission, respectively, by the city of Denver, Colorado. After the initial production, the clouds continued to generate CCN at a rate of about 1/cu cm sec. However, concentrations of IN in the ATLAS cloud were greater than ambient values for only a short period after launch, and it appears that the nuclei resulted from entrained launch pad and ground debris. The concentrations of IN in the TITAN cloud were found to be at or below ambient levels until about 2 hours after launch when they increased substantially above ambient values.
Shortly after the 18 May eruption, a series of airborne lidar flights were made over the Eastern United States. During the same period, ground-based systems were activated throughout the world. The available worldwide lidar data is put together in a consistent set. These data show the dispersion of material at different altitudes during the early global circuits. The material in the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere was very patchy in horizontal extent with backscattering ratio values over the east coast of the United States greater than 100 at the ruby wavelength of 0.6943. Two wavelength ratios and depolarization values for the material in the lower stratosphere (12 to 18 km) appear to have returned to the pre-18 May values within a month after the eruption and this indicated a rapid conversion to spherical shapes and normal indices of refraction. The material above 20 km moved slowly westward while most of the ejecta moved eastward at various speeds and directions which varied considerably with altitude. The westward material was detected first by the Japanese lidar system and then subsequently by the European and American ground-based systems. It circuited the globe in about 60 days. An airborne lidar flight in early September across the continental United States showed the layers to have homogenized considerably one broad layer between about 14 and 21 km peaking at 18 to 19 km and another more intermittent thin layer between 21 and 22 km. The ruby peak backscattering ratio of the broad layer was between 1.3 and 1.5.
The REEDM computer program predicts concentrations, dosages, and depositions downwind from normal and abnormal launches of rocket vehicles at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The atmospheric dispersion models, cloud-rise models, and other formulas used in the REEDM model are described mathematically Vehicle and source parameters, other pertinent physical properties of the rocket exhaust cloud, and meteorological layering techniques are presented as well as user's instructions for REEDM. Worked example problems are included.
The program listing for the REEDM Computer Program is provided. A mathematical description of the atmospheric dispersion models, cloud-rise models, and other formulas used in the REEDM model; vehicle and source parameters, other pertinent physical properties of the rocket exhaust cloud and meteorological layering techniques; user's instructions for the REEDM computer program; and worked example problems are contained in NASA CR-3646.
The results of air quality predictions and measurements made during the launches of the Space Shuttle are presented. The atmospheric conditions, the use of the REED code, and the resulting predictions and measurements are discussed.
The second Space Shuttle (STS-2) was launched from the John F. Kennedy Space Center at 1010 EST on November 12, 1981. An instrumented light airplane was used to measure the emitted concentration of Shuttle exhaust products produced during launch. The airplane accomplished 31 passes through and under the exhaust cloud in the 1 hr 45 min immediately following the launch. Measurements included the following: (1) particulate data in the form of a light scattering coefficient obtained from an integrating nephelometer, (2) particulate concentrations and mass concentrations obtained from a spectrometer probe, (3) gaseous HCl and total HCl concentrations obtained from a gas-filter-correlation instrument and a chemiluminescent instrument, respectively, and (4) outside-air temperature and dew-point temperature. These data are presented along with time, altitude, and position for each cloud pass. These data are within the range of values observed during similar measurements made during the first Space Shuttle launch on April 12, 1981.
Under stable meteorological conditions the effect of ship-stack exhaust on overlying clouds was detected in daytime satellite images as an enhancement in cloud reflectivity at 3.7 micrometers. The exhaust is a source of cloud-condensation nuclei that increases the number of cloud droplets while reducing droplet size. This reduction in droplet size causes the reflectivity at 3.7 micrometers to be greater than the levels for nearby noncontaminated clouds of similar physical characteristics. The increase in droplet number causes the reflectivity at 0.63 micrometer to be significantly higher for the contaminated clouds despite the likelihood that the exhaust is a source of particles that absorb at visible wavelengths. The effect of aerosols on cloud reflectivity is expected to have a larger influence on the earth's albedo than that due to the direct scattering and absorption of sunlight by the aerosols alone.
The effects of El Chichon's April 1982 eruption on stratospheric aerosol dynamics are presently discussed in terms of log-normal size distributions over 15-20 km sample altitudes between 30 and 45 deg N over the contiguous U.S. After collection, samples were studied by SEM, and log-normal size distributions were fitted to the data-points obtained. It is found that stratospheric aerosol behavior is explainable by the laws of aerosol mechanics more easily than has been the case for tropospheric aerosol, for which the source-sink relationship is much more complex.
The angular distribution of scattered radiation deep within a cloud layer was measured in marine stratocumulus clouds modified by the emissions from ships. These observations, obtained at thirteen discrete wavelengths between 0.5 and 2.3 microns, were obtained as the University of Washington Convair C-131A aircraft flew through a pair of roughly parallel ship tracks off the coast of southern California on 10 July 1987. In the first of these ship tracks, the cloud droplet concentration increased from 40 to 107/cu cm (125/cu cm in the second ship track). Simultaneous to this spectacular change, the aircraft measured interstitial aerosol (Aitken nucleus) concentration that increased from 400 to 1000/cu cm and cloud liquid water content that increased from 0.03 to 0.75 g/cu m. Broadband pyranometer measurements showed that the upwelling flux density increased from 150 to 280 W/sq m. These in-situ microphysics and broadband pyranometer results, together with AVHRR satellite images obtained with the NOAA-10 satellite, are described in detail by Radke et al., (1989). Internal scattered radiation measurements at selected wavelengths obtained with the cloud absorption radiometer (King et al., 1986) for a 100 km section of marine stratocumulus clouds containing these two ship track features are presented.
Transmittance measurements using an NO resonance source are reported for an expanded arc-heated flow. The data are used to deduce NO concentrations, which range from 0.17 to 1.9 percent by volume for facility operating conditions with nozzle exit static temperatures from 87 to 320 K. Absorption measurements in the (0,1) band, not attributable to a flow at thermal equilibrium, are used to calculate nonequilibrium vibrational temperatures ranging from 533 to 919 K. The data are in good agreement with the vibrational-temperature predictions of a one-dimensional relaxation code, within the uncertainties of calculations and measured transmittance.
The requirement for accurate, precise, and rapid analytical procedures for the examination of water and waste samples requires the use of a variety of instruments. The instrumentation in water laboratories includes atomic absorption, UV-visible. and infrared spectrophotometers, automatic colorimetric analyzers, gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers. Because of the emphasis on regulatory action, attention is being directed toward quality control of analytical results. Among the challenging problems are the differentiation of metallic species in water at nanogram concentrations, rapid measurement of free cyanide and free ammonia, more sensitive methods for arsenic and selenium and improved characterization of organic contaminants.
Modifications have been proposed to effect further improvement of the device described in Improved Piezoelectrically Actuated Microvalve (NPO-30158), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 26, No. 1 (January 2002), page 29. To recapitulate: What is being developed is a prototype of valves for microfluidic systems and other microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The version of the valve reported in the cited previous article included a base (which contained a seat, an inlet, and an outlet), a diaphragm, and a linear actuator. With the exception of the actuator, the parts were micromachined from silicon. The linear actuator consisted of a stack of piezoelectric disks in a rigid housing. To make the diaphragm apply a large sealing force on the inlet and outlet, the piezoelectric stack was compressed into a slightly contracted condition during assembly of the valve. Application of a voltage across the stack caused the stack to contract into an even more compressed condition, lifting the diaphragm away from the seat, thereby creating a narrow channel between the inlet and outlet. The positions of the inlet and outlet, relative to the diaphragm and seat, were such that the inlet flow and pressure contributed to sealing and thus to a desired normally-closed mode of operation.