The relationship between plasma effects and cosmic radiation studied with TriTel-LMP measurements during the ESEO mission

The main point of the paper is to use the simultaneous measurements of the energetic particle flux by TriTel and those of electron density by a Langmuir probe to study the question of to what extent solar electromagnetic and corpuscular radiation (galactic cosmic rays, particle precipitation from the radiation belts) are responsible for the ionization of the atmosphere. The electron density measured by the Langmuir probe is the sum of the ionization produced by the solar electromagnetic radiation and that due to the corpuscular radiation. The ionization produced by the solar electromagnetic radiation may be computed. The flux of energetic particles in an energy range may be determined by taking the difference between the threshold energy of the TriTel telescopes and the energy corresponding to the local cut-off rigidity. As the ESEO satellite will have a quasi-polar and circular orbit, the cut-off rigidity will change from low to high latitudes, thus enabling the assignment of different energy bands for the telescopes. Thus, it will be possible to determine which energy bands of particle produce ionization at different latitudes.     

GNSS reflectometry and remote sensing: New objectives and results

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) has been a very powerful and important contributor to all scientific questions related to precise positioning on Earth’s surface, particularly as a mature technique in geodesy and geosciences. With the development of GNSS as a satellite microwave (L-band) technique, more and wider applications and new potentials are explored and utilized. The versatile and available GNSS signals can image the Earth’s surface environments as a new, highly precise, continuous, all-weather and near-real-time remote sensing tool. The refracted signals from GNSS radio occultation satellites together with ground GNSS observations can provide the high-resolution tropospheric water vapor, temperature and pressure, tropopause parameters and ionospheric total electron content (TEC) and electron density profile as well. The GNSS reflected signals from the ocean and land surface could determine the ocean height, wind speed and wind direction of ocean surface, soil moisture, ice and snow thickness. In this paper, GNSS remote sensing applications in the atmosphere, oceans, land and hydrology are presented as well as new objectives and results discussed.     

Robotic Instrument for Grinding Rocks Into Thin Sections (GRITS)

We have developed a rock grinding and polishing mechanism for in situ planetary exploration based on abrasive disks, called Grinding Rocks Into Thin Sections (GRITS). Performance characteristics and design considerations of GRITS are presented. GRITS was developed as part of a broader effort to develop an in situ automated rock thin section (ISARTS) instrument. The objective of IS-ARTS was to develop an instrument capable of producing petrographic rock thin sections on a planetary science spacecraft. GRITS may also be useful to other planetary science missions with in situ instruments in which rock surface preparation are necessary.     

Prospects of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) reflectometry for geodynamic studies

Innovative processing of satellite radar altimetry over solid Earth has been successfully applied for observing geodynamic process of glacial isostatic adjustment over the former Laurentide Ice Sheet in the present-day Hudson Bay land region. In this contribution, a simulation is conducted to study the prospects of the applications of space-/airborne and land-based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) reflectometry to synoptically observe global-scale geodynamic processes with a vertical accuracy of ∼2 mm/yr.