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Electro-thermo-mechanical modelling of micro solar sails of chip scale spacecraft in space
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Electrothermally Driven Reconfiguration of Microrobotic Beam Structures for the ChipSail System
Solar sailing enables efficient propellant-free attitude adjustment and orbital maneuvers of solar sail spacecraft with high area-to-mass ratios. However, the heavy supporting mass for large solar sails inevitably leads to low area-to-mass ratios. Inspired by chip-scale satellites, a chip-scale solar sail system named ChipSail, consisting of microrobotic solar sails and a chip-scale satellite, was proposed in this work. The structural design and reconfigurable mechanisms of an electrothermally driven microrobotic solar sail made of Al\Ni 50 Ti 50 bilayer beams were introduced, and the theoretical model of its electro-thermo-mechanical behaviors was established. The analytical solutions to the out-of-plane deformation of the solar sail structure appeared to be in good agreement with the finite element analysis (FEA) results. A representative prototype of such solar sail structures was fabricated on silicon wafers using surface and bulk microfabrication, followed by an in-situ experiment of its reconfigurable property under controlled electrothermal actuation. The experimental results demonstrated significant electro-thermo-mechanical deformation of such microrobotic bilayer solar sails, showing great potential in the development of the ChipSail system. Analytical solutions to the electro-thermo-mechanical model, as well as the fabrication process and characterization techniques, provided a rapid performance evaluation and optimization of such microrobotic bilayer solar sails for the ChipSail.
Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory (SAIL) Backgrounder
Half of the world relies on water from the mountains, but in a warming world, it is difficult to predict what these resources will look like. The ability to predict future water requires a deep scientific understanding not only of snow and rain, but also of solar and thermal energy, evaporation and transpiration of water, sublimation of snow, impacts of aerosols, and subsurface hydrological processes that control the ultimate discharge from mountainous watersheds.
Diurnal Trends and Meteorological Factors Influencing the Variability of Fluorescent Bioaerosol in Mt. Crested Butte, Colorado During SAIL
Abstract Despite the crucial role of bioaerosol particles (BAP) in our climate system, local ecosystems, and human health, our grasp on their atmospheric interactions is hampered by a lack of high‐resolution and long‐term data, which is essential for understanding their abundance and variability in response to meteorological conditions. To discern these relationships in a high‐altitude mountainous terrain is even less well‐studied. Therefore, we deployed a Wideband Integrated Bioaerosol Sensor (WIBS‐Neo) for three months during the first biologically active season of the Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory (SAIL) campaign in summer 2022 on Mt. Crested Butte in Colorado (elevation 3,140 m ASL). Here, we report real‐time fluorescent BAP (FBAP) data collected from 15 June to 13 September 2022, sampled from within the ARM Aerosol Observing System (AOS). To our knowledge, these are the first high altitude (>3,000 m ASL) continuous measurements of FBAP made in North America. During this deployment, we observed on average 21% and as many as 48% (hourly maximum) of particles within the detection size range ( to ) of the WIBS as FBAP. Our analysis presents the diurnal cycles for seven distinct types of FBAP, showing unique patterns and, in some cases, correlations with temperature and solar radiation cycles. Abundance and composition of FBAP varied with relative humidity and precipitation. Precipitation events appeared to both cause emission and removal of FBAP, whereas dust and smoke events had no significant effect, highlighting the critical role of meteorology on FBAP at high altitudes.
Seasonality and Albedo Dependence of Cloud Radiative Forcing in the Upper Colorado River Basin
Mountains create and enhance their own clouds, which both scatter and absorb shortwave radiation from the sun and absorb and re-emit land surface and atmospheric longwave radiation. However, the impacts of clouds on the surface radiation balance in high elevation snowy mountain terrain are poorly explored. In this study, we use data collected by the SAIL field campaign and partner organizations in the upper elevations (2,880 m.a.s.l) of the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) over a 21-month period from September 2021 to June 2023 to estimate Cloud Radiative Forcing (CRF) in the shortwave, longwave, and the net effect. Longwave warming effects dominate during the winter when snow albedos are high (0.8–0.9) and the background atmospheric precipitable water vapor is low (<0.5 cm), yielding a maximum monthly average net CRF of +34.7 W·m -2 , meaning that clouds increase the net radiation relative to clear skies during this time period. The sign of net CRF switches in the warm season as snow recedes, sun-angles increase, and the North American monsoon arrives, yielding a minimum monthly average net CRF of -47.6 W·m -2 with hourly minima of -600 W·m -2 . The sign of net CRF is typically positive, even at solar noon, when the surface is snow covered, except for a brief period over melting, low-albedo snow (0.5–0.6) impacted by dust impurities. Sensitivity tests elucidate the role of the surface albedo on the net CRF. The results suggest that net CRF will increase in magnitude and lead to a more persistent cooling effect on the surface net radiation budget as the snow cover declines.
Super-Large-Scale Hierarchically Porous Films Based on Self-Assembled Eye-Like Air Pores for High-Performance Daytime Radiative Cooling
Metal-free polymer daytime radiative cooling coatings with hierarchical eye-like air pores are proposed and fabricated with a super-large-scale film-stretching method. The hierarchically porous film (HPF) can be further coated with polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) micro-hemispheres, forming coated HPF (cHPF), which do not dramatically change the optical or thermal properties. The cHPF is slightly better with a lower solar absorptivity (2.4%) and a higher thermal emissivity over the atmospheric transparency window (90.1%). The low solar absorptivity is due to the strong scattering of the hierarchical eye-like air pores, while the molecular vibrations and the focusing effect of the PMMA micro-hemispheres contribute to the high emissivity. Further, an average mid-day temperature reduction of 7.92 °C is achieved relative to the air temperature, and the average cooling power reaches 116.0 W m -2 , which are much better than the cooling performances of the commercial cooling cushion. During the day, the cHPF-covered simulated building is up to 6.47 and 4.84 °C cooler than the ambient and the white painted counterpart, respectively. The film is durable and resistant to chemical etching, and very promising to use globally, especially in warm and tropical regions.
Modeling the Effect of the Heliospheric Magnetic Field on Cosmic Ray Muon Shadows
Shadows cast in the cosmic ray (CR) muon sky by the Sun were located using muon data from the MINOS far detector in Northern Minnesota. The shadows were observed independently across three time periods; near solar minimum, near solar maximum, and over the entire 13 year span of the data. A distribution of muon positions for each shadow was then sampled to simulate CR motions near the Sun using the Parker spiral model of the Heliospheric Magnetic Field (HMF) and a dipole model of the Geomagnetic Field (GMF). The resulting particle distributions were then compared to their position with respect to the Sun. Results show that the Parker spiral model is most consistent with the solar minimum shadow and least consistent with the solar maximum shadow, as expected. The simple Parker spiral is more consistent with the data for a harder CR spectrum than is actually present, indicating the need for a more detailed HMF model. Plausible modifications to the Parker spiral model which would affect the overall shift of the Sun's CR shadow are discussed.