Excavation of artificial caverns inside asteroids by leveraging rotational self-energy

Future space ventures will likely require exploitation of near-Earth asteroid resources. Moreover, it can be envisaged that asteroids may host habitats in their interiors. In fact, a cavern inside an asteroid would be a natural radiation shield against cosmic radiation and may also serve as a confined environment for storage of mined material such as water ice or other processed volatiles such as propellants. To this end, this paper proposes to leverage the asteroid rotational self-energy to remove material from the asteroid interiors and create a spherical cavern, by means of the orbital siphon concept. The siphon is a chain of tether-connected payload masses (the asteroid material), which exploits the rotation of the asteroid for the delivery of mass from the asteroid to escape. Under certain conditions the siphon can be initiated to ensure self-sustained flow of mass from the asteroid to escape. A net orbital siphon effect is generated by connecting new payloads at the bottom of the chain while releasing the upper payloads. Key parameters are discussed, such as the required siphon dimension and the maximum size of the internal cavity that can be excavated, as a function of the asteroid rotational period. Moreover, assuming elastic material behaviour, a closed-form expression for the stress tensor is found and a failure criterion is used to identify regions in the asteroid interiors subjected to the larger stresses. It is shown that the conditions for failure are relaxed as the radius of the internal void increases.     

RPC-MAG The Fluxgate Magnetometer in the ROSETTA Plasma Consortium

The fluxgate magnetometer experiment onboard the ROSETTA spacecraft aims to measure the magnetic field in the interaction region of the solar wind plasma with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It consists of a system of two ultra light (about 28 g each ) triaxial fluxgate magnetometer sensors, mounted on the 1.5 m long spacecraft boom. The measurement range of each sensor is ±16384 nT with quantization steps of 31 pT. The magnetometer sensors are operated with a time resolution of up to 0.05 s, corresponding to a bandwidth of 0–10 Hz. This performance of the RPC-MAG sensors allows detailed analyses of magnetic field variations in the cometary environment. RPC-MAG furthermore is designed to study possible remnant magnetic fields of the nucleus, measurements which will be done in close cooperation with the ROSETTA lander magnetometer experiment ROMAP.     

ISO's Contribution to the Study of Clusters of Galaxies

Starting with nearby galaxy clusters like Virgo and Coma, and continuing out to the furthest galaxy clusters for which ISO results have yet been published (z = 0.56), we discuss the development of knowledge of the infrared and associated physical properties of galaxy clusters from early IRAS observations, through the “ISO-era” to the present, in order to explore the status of ISO's contribution to this field. Relevant IRAS and ISO programmes are reviewed, addressing both the cluster galaxies and the still-very-limited evidence for an infrared-emitting intra-cluster medium. ISO made important advances in knowledge of both nearby and distant galaxy clusters, such as the discovery of a major cold dust component in Virgo and Coma cluster galaxies, the elaboration of the correlation between dust emission and Hubble-type, and the detection of numerous Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs) in several distant clusters. These and consequent achievements are underlined and described. We recall that, due to observing time constraints, ISO's coverage of higher-redshift galaxy clusters to the depths required to detect and study statistically significant samples of cluster galaxies over a range of morphological types could not be comprehensive and systematic, and such systematic coverage of distant clusters will be an important achievement of the Spitzer Observatory. Based on observations with ISO, an ESA project with instruments funded by ESA Member States (especially the PI countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) and with the participation of ISAS and NASA.     

Relativistic MHD Simulations of Jets with Toroidal Magnetic Fields

This paper presents an application of the recent relativistic HLLC approximate Riemann solver by Mignone & Bodo to magnetized flows with vanishing normal component of the magnetic field. The numerical scheme is validated in two dimensions by investigating the propagation of axisymmetric jets with toroidal magnetic fields. The selected jet models show that the HLLC solver yields sharper resolution of contact and shear waves and better convergence properties over the traditional HLL approach.     

基于CFAR检测的SAR噪声干扰效果评估方法

在研究美国林肯实验室的SAR恒虚警(CFAR)自动目标检测方法的基础上,分析了CFAR目标检测技术在不同噪声干扰强度下检测概率的变化情况,并结合图像相关性分析得出一种改进的基于CFAR检测技术的SAR噪声干扰效果评估方法.     

一种适于动态环境的盲多用户检测算法

比较两种盲多用户检测算法在动态环境中的收敛性能,并通过计算机进行模拟仿真。其中一种是能随输入信号矢量变化而变化的变步长最小输出能量盲算法;另一种是既保持最小输出能量检测器的全局收敛性,又具有最小均方误差检测器高输出信干比优点的判决反馈变步长盲算法。利用前者在动态强干扰下收敛快及后者在稳态时输出信干比高的优势,将二者结合起来应用到动态环境中,提高系统性能,同时抑制多址干扰和窄带干扰。     

有限推力下时间最优轨道转移

研究了一种有限推力作用下的时间最优轨道转移计算方法。以非奇异根素形式的高斯行星摄动方程为基础,由庞德里亚金极小值原理导出正则方程组,通过将最优控制问题转化为协状态初值为待优化参数的参数优化问题,并通过非线性规划求解得到的参数优化问题,从而避开求解两点边值问题的困难。文章最后给出2个算例,分别计算了零倾角零偏心率最优轨道转移和大倾角改变最优轨道转移。计算过程及结果表明本文所用方法对协状态初值猜测敏感性小,收敛迅速;零倾角零偏心率情况下无奇异;所得控制轨线光滑。     

用户星对中继卫星的跟踪规律研究

根据中继卫星系统中用户星跟踪中继卫星的要求，定义了用户星天线坐标系，推导出了用户星天线对中继卫星的跟踪规律。通过该跟踪规律可以推出用户星天线跟踪中继卫星的跟踪角度、角速度和角加速度。同时，在给定系统一定初始条件的情况下，利用该跟踪规律分别推出了用户星最大跟踪角度和角速度与用户星轨道高度和用户星轨道倾角之间的关系。最后利用STK(Satellite Tool Kit)对该跟踪规律进行了间接验证。     

ILD智能交通流量测试仪

介绍一种交通流量测试仪，它具有高灵敏度、高信噪比、传输距离远，可以准确地测量机动车、自行车流量，且成本低。由于该仪器设置了驱动变送器，采用了一种新的传输结构，引入了微机技术，模式识别等技术，从而研制出性能稳定、操作方便、实用性强且具有国际先进水平的道路交通流量测试装置。