Experiment on the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Vernov</Emphasis> satellite: Transient energetic processes in the Earth’s atmosphere and magnetosphere. Part I: Description of the experiment

The program of physical studies on the Vernov satellite launched on July 8, 2014 into a polar (640 × 830 km) solar-synchronous orbit with an inclination of 98.4° is presented. We described the complex of scientific equipment on this satellite in detail, including multidirectional gamma-ray detectors, electron spectrometers, red and ultra-violet detectors, and wave probes. The experiment on the Vernov satellite is mainly aimed at a comprehensive study of the processes of generation of transient phenomena in the optical and gamma-ray ranges in the Earth’s atmosphere (such as high-altitude breakdown on runaway relativistic electrons), the study of the action on the atmosphere of electrons precipitated from the radiation belts, and low- and high-frequency electromagnetic waves of both space and atmospheric origin.     

Flight performance analysis of GRACE K-band ranging instrument with simulation data

A dual one-way ranging (DOWR) system provides very high accuracy range measurements between two satellites. The GRACE satellite mission implements the DOWR, called KBR (K-band ranging), to measure very small inter-satellite range change in order to map the Earth gravity field. The flight performance of the KBR is analyzed by using a hybrid software simulator that incorporates actual satellite orbit data into a comprehensive KBR simulator, which was earlier used for computing the GRACE baseline accuracy. Three types of experiments were performed. First is the comparison of the flight data with the simulated data in spectral domain. Second is the comparison of double differenced noise level. Third is the comparison of the range-rate difference with GPS clock estimates. The analysis shows a good agreement with the simulation model except some excessive high frequency noise, e.g. 10⁻⁴ m/√Hz at 0.1 Hz. The range-rate difference shows 0.003 cyc/s discrepancy with the clock estimates. These analyses are helpful to refine the DOWR simulation model and can be benefit to future DOWR instrument development.     

预混气不稳定性对螺旋爆轰结构的影响研究

为了明确预混气的不稳定性对螺旋爆轰内部结构的影响,在内径63.5mm的爆轰管道内进行了C_2H_2+2.5O_2+85%Ar,2H_2+O_2+50%Ar,C_2H_2+2.5O_2+70%Ar,C_2H_2+5N_2O和CH_4+2O_2的爆轰实验,得到壁面烟膜和端面烟熏玻璃记录的三波点轨迹。分析了预混气单头、双头、多头螺旋的差别及原因,发现预混气越不稳定,端面结构越难形成规则图形。稳定预混气向内部延伸模式较规律,不稳定预混气向内部延伸规律由于横波间相互干渉较难寻找。对多头胞格进行数字化处理,获得了壁面的三波点轨迹间距和端面的胞格尺寸数据以及方差。发现端面胞格的尺寸与壁面数据发展趋势一致,但是低于壁面数据,其中,C_2H_2+2.5O_2+85%Ar,2H_2+O_2+50%Ar,C_2H_2+2.5O_2+70%Ar和C_2H_2+5N_2O壁面横波间距分别由45.7,72.7,47.1和24.9减小为10.2,17.4,13.2和12.1,端面胞格由19.6,19.9,8.5和18.2减小为6.8,7.1,4.1和5.0。胞格离散度与轨迹间距离散度一致,但是胞格离散度更高,其原因在于壁面处的活化分子因为碰撞到壁面而减少。     

Temperature effects in the ATIC BGO calorimeter

The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) Balloon Experiment had a successful test flight and a science flight in 2000–01 and 2002–03 and an unsuccessful launch in 2005–06 from McMurdo, Antarctica, returning 16 and 19 days of flight data. ATIC is designed to measure the spectra of cosmic rays (protons to iron). The instrument is composed of a Silicon matrix detector followed by a carbon target interleaved with scintillator tracking layers and a segmented BGO calorimeter composed of 320 individual crystals totaling 18 radiation lengths to determine the particle energy. BGO (Bismuth Germanate) is an inorganic scintillation crystal and its light output depends not only on the energy deposited by particles but also on the temperature of the crystal. The temperature of balloon instruments during flight is not constant due to sun angle variations as well as differences in albedo from the ground. The change in output for a given energy deposit in the crystals in response to temperature variations was determined.     

A detailed FLUKA-2005 Monte-Carlo simulation for the ATIC detector

We have performed a detailed Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation for the Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) detector using the MC code FLUKA-2005 which is capable of simulating particles up to 10 PeV. The ATIC detector has completed two successful balloon flights from McMurdo, Antarctica lasting a total of more than 35 days. ATIC is designed as a multiple, long duration balloon flight, investigation of the cosmic ray spectra from below 50 GeV to near 100 TeV total energy; using a fully active Bismuth Germanate (BGO) calorimeter. It is equipped with a large mosaic of silicon detector pixels capable of charge identification, and, for particle tracking, three projective layers of x–y scintillator hodoscopes, located above, in the middle and below a 0.75 nuclear interaction length graphite target. Our simulations are part of an analysis package of both nuclear (A) and energy dependences for different nuclei interacting in the ATIC detector. The MC simulates the response of different components of the detector such as the Si-matrix, the scintillator hodoscopes and the BGO calorimeter to various nuclei. We present comparisons of the FLUKA-2005 MC calculations with GEANT calculations and with the ATIC CERN data.     

Biased PNG law for impact with angular constraint

A new homing guidance law is proposed to impact a target with a desired attitude angle. It is a variation of the conventional proportional navigation guidance (PNG) law which includes a supplementary time-varying bias. The proposed guidance law does not require a time-to-go estimation and has a simpler form. Analytic conditions for fulfilling the guidance goal are also provided. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed guidance law has wider launch envelopes than the previous one and shows a good performance even against a maneuvering target     

Deposition of aluminide and chromium-modified aluminide coatings on TiAl alloys using the halide-activated pack cementation method

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Mature systems for small satellite missions

Over the past several years Satellites International has developed an integrated suite of satellite sub-systems and small satellite buses. The sub-systems include S-band communications, attitude sensing and control, power conversion and distribution, and on-board data handling. They are inherently modular and readily adaptable to different satellite configurations, a concept known as semi-standardisation. This concept has been adopted by two generic low-cost buses: MicroSIL for satellites in the mass range 40–80kg; and MiniSIL for satellites in the range 100–500kg. Their architecture is based on the semi-standard sub-systems, but easily modified to utilise sub-systems from other manufacturers. They can support all stabilisation methods including spinning, 3-axis control and gravity gradient and are adaptable to a wide variety of missions including Earth resources, scientific, communications and technology demonstration. The Company also manufactures a range of low cost ground support equipment and complete ground stations to complement the space-borne systems.     

An LS-TLS-based sequential identification algorithm: Application toan accelerometer

Total least squares (TLS) parameter estimation is an alternative to least squares (LS) estimation when there are errors in both data matrix and observation vector. Especially, when some of the columns, not all, of the data matrix A are free of error, we call it a mixed LS-TLS problem. Accordingly, a sequential algorithm for solving a mixed LS-TLS problem is proposed here. The proposed algorithm employs an efficient algorithm to locate the minimum eigenpair, instead of singular value decomposition (SVD) which is computationally exacting. The proposed algorithm is applied to an accelerometer model to identify error parameters which are very important in inertial navigation systems (INS)