Status of the Air Force nickel hydrogen low earth orbit life test

The US Air Force NiH₂ LEO (low earth orbit) life test consists of 200 cells undergoing real-time LEO cycling, pulse discharge testing, and storage testing. To date, three of the program's four objectives have been met: NiH₂ performance in LEO applications has been demonstrated. A significant number of cells have completed more than 20,000 cycles at 40% DOD. A database for cells of both 3.5 in. and 4.5 in. diameter has been generated. There have been no indications of any performance problems related to scaling up in terms of cell size. Initial data on the pulse discharge performance of a small number of cells has been demonstrated. Concerning the goal of achieving 20,000 cycles at 60% DOD, the data are mixed. Overall, it appears highly unlikely that cell designs such as those currently in the US Air Force test can achieve 20,000 cycles at 60%     

Growing root, tuber and nut crops hydroponically for CELSS.

Among the crops selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for growth in controlled ecological life support systems are four that have subsurface edible parts -- potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugar beets and peanuts. These crops have been produced in open and closed (recirculating), solid media and liquid, hydroponic systems. Fluorescent , fluorescent plus incandescent and high pressure sodium plus metal halide lamps have proven to be effective light sources. Continuous light with 16 degrees C and 28/22 degrees C (day/night) temperatures have produced highest yields for potato and sweet potato, respectively. Dry weight yields of up to 4685, 2541, 1151 and 207 g m-2 for for potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugar beets and peanuts, respectively, have been produced in controlled environment hydroponic systems.     

HD 190918: Arbiter between models for Wolf-Rayet stars

New orbital elements for the 112.4 day WN4.5+O9.5Ia spectroscopic binary HD 190918 are presented. Solutions consistent with the O star being a main sequence star or a supergiant are obtained wheni=25° or 20°, respectively. We predict the X-ray flux to be expected from this system and note how an observation of the X-ray flux from HD 190918 would help one to choose the most probable value of the inclination.     

X-ray,optical and UV observations of the AM Her system E2003+225

The AM Her type object E2003+225 was observed with EXOSAT, IUE and ground-based telescopes on 1983 Oct. 12. The brightness of the ultrasoft X-ray component allowed the Objective Grating Spectrometer (OGS) to be used, which gave a model-independent determination of the temperature of the blackbody spectrum. The star was observed again on 1984 July 24 by IUE with simultaneous optical spectrophotometry. The high resolution of this observation revealed complex line profiles, and a systematic velocity much smaller than previously reported. The composite energy distribution is presented.     

Radiative damping of gravity waves in the solar atmosphere

The nonlocal character of the radiation field sianificantly modifies the radiative damping of perturbations in the solar photosphere. Gravity waves are not usually considered to exist in the solar photosphere because the radiative damping time, when based on the Newtonian approximation, is too short. However, this restriction does not apply to low order gravity waves. In fact, with the inclusion of nonlocal effects, the radiative damping for low order gravity waves becomes negative for some region in the photosphere and thus acts as a driving mechanism for gravity waves there.     

The TESP electron spectrometer and correlator (F7) on Freja

The two-dimensional electron spectrometer onFreja consists of a top-hat-type electrostatic analyzer with the addition of entrance aperture deflection plates. The field of view of the concentric-hemisphere analyzer is modified from a plane to a cone up to 25° from this plane by application of bipolar high voltages to the deflection plates. Fast high-voltage sweeps allow full 10 eV–25 KeV, 500-point distribution function measurements in 32 ms. Constant-energy or limited energy-sweep modes allow time resolutions down to 1 ms.A set of electronics combines the electron data with F4 wave data to allow on-board calculations of cross-correlations between electron fluxes and wave electric fields. Additionally, a fast signal processor is capable of searching the electron pulse sequence from one or several channeltrons for high-frequency modulations in the electron flux.     

A study of acoustic halos in active region NOAA 11330 using multi-height SDO observations

We analyze data from the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager (HMI) and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instruments on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to characterize the spatio-temporal acoustic power distribution in active regions as a function of the height in the solar atmosphere. For this, we use Doppler velocity and continuum intensity observed using the magnetically sensitive line at 6173?Å as well as intensity at 1600?Å and 1700?Å. We focus on the power enhancements seen around AR 11330 as a function of wave frequency, magnetic field strength, field inclination and observation height. We find that acoustic halos occur above the acoustic cutoff frequency and extends up to 10?mHz in HMI Doppler and AIA 1700?Å observations. Halos are also found to be strong functions of magnetic field and their inclination angle. We further calculate and examine the spatially averaged relative phases and cross-coherence spectra and find different wave characteristics at different heights.