Solar sailing in realistic mode,based on a locally-optimal control laws

Ballistic design of solar sailing missions in the solar system is composed of defining the design parameters, the control programs, and the trajectories that provide performance goals of a flight. The use of a solar sail spacecraft imposes specific restrictions on mission parameters that include the degradation limit on the flight duration, the maximum temperature of solar sail's surface, the minimum distance from the Sun, the maximum angular velocity of the spacecraft's rotation and others.Many authors considered the impact of these restrictions on the design of the mission separately, but they used a sophisticated method of finding the exact optimal motion control or applied the most straightforward laws of motion control. This paper uses local-optimal control laws at the complete mathematical models of motion and functioning of solar sail spacecraft to describe a technique of designing interplanetary missions. The described method avoids the need to obtain an accurate optimal solution to the control problem and does not cause significant computational difficulties.     

Evaluation of the IRI-2016 and NeQuick electron content specification by COSMIC GPS radio occultation,ground-based GPS and Jason-2 joint altimeter/GPS observations

We examined performance of two empirical profile-based ionospheric models, namely IRI-2016 and NeQuick-2, in electron content (EC) and total electron content (TEC) representation for different seasons and levels of solar activity. We derived and analyzed EC estimates in several representative altitudinal intervals for the ionosphere and the plasmasphere from the COSMIC GPS radio occultation, ground-based GPS and Jason-2 joint altimeter/GPS observations. It allows us to estimate a quantitative impact of the ionospheric electron density profiles formulation in several altitudinal intervals and to examine the source of the model-data discrepancies of the EC specification from the bottom-side ionosphere towards the GPS orbit altitudes. The most pronounced model-data differences were found at the low latitude region as related to the equatorial ionization anomaly appearance. Both the IRI-2016 and NeQuick-2 models tend to overestimate the daytime ionospheric EC and TEC at low latitudes during all seasons of low solar activity. On the contrary, during high solar activity the model results underestimated the EC/TEC observations at low latitudes. We found that both models underestimated the EC for the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere regions for all levels of solar activity. For low solar activity, the underestimated EC from the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere can compensate the overestimation of the ionospheric EC and, consequently, can slightly decrease the resulted model overestimation of the ground-based TEC. For high solar activity, the underestimated EC from the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere leads to a strengthening of the model underestimation of the ground-based TEC values. We demonstrated that the major source of the model-data discrepancies in the EC/TEC domain comes from the topside ionosphere/plasmasphere system.     

Application of a modified generalized sail model on a solar sail with wrinkles

In this paper, we present an analysis of effect of wrinkles on the solar sail performance. We describe different analytical, semi-analytical and numerical approaches to the calculation of general large-scale curvature of a solar sail as well as parameters of so-called wrinkled domains, and introduce the impact of such wrinkles on the thrust and torque of the solar sail. Finally, we present a model of an optically-orthotropic surface for such non-ideal sail, providing a connection with the Generalized Sail Model, and other solar sail thrust models.     

Influence of optical parameters on a solar sail motion

Detailed dynamic modeling of a solar sail requires recording of solar radiation pressure influence. A photon-solar sail is determined by the thrust value and the direction. We define the solar sail’s reflectivity depending on the film materials, the sail design and temperature, the thickness of multiple layers, and degradation factor, with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Thus, this work is devoted to the identification of optical characteristics of thin multilayer films in space flight conditions, i.e. to finding its reflectance, absorbance, and transmittance. In particular, the paper asks whether the solar sail simulates by a mathematical model of the optical characteristics of a multilayer epitaxial thin film. The temperature change effect and optical properties of solar sail degradation are considered as well. Solar sail flight from Earth to Mercury is designed as a simulation of the flight change in optical parameters.     

The acquisition of survey knowledge for local and global landmark configurations under time pressure

The influence of stress states on cognition is widely recognized. However, the manner in which stress affects survey knowledge acquisition is still unresolved. For the present study, we investigated whether survey knowledge acquisition during a stressful task (i.e., under time pressure) is more accurate for the mental representation of global or local landmarks. Participants navigated through virtual cities with a navigation aid and explicit learning instructions for different landmark configurations. Participants’ judgments of relative direction (JRDs) suggest that global landmark configurations were not represented more accurately than local landmark configurations and that survey knowledge acquisition was not impaired under time pressure. In contrast to prior findings, our results indicate the limitations of the utility of global landmarks for spatial knowledge acquisition.     

Studies of polar mesosphere summer echoes with the EISCAT VHF and UHF radars: Information contained in the spectral shape

The nature of PMSE in the VHF and UHF frequency range is considered taking into account the shape of corresponding Doppler spectra. Assuming a turbulence-based model of PMSE it is argued that for cases where a VHF radar detects strong PMSE, the UHF radar could either detect enhanced coherent scattering caused by the same physical process as in the VHF (i.e., turbulence with large charged ice particles), there could be incoherent scattering modified by the charged ice particles, or there could be a mixture of both. In order to distinguish these cases a simple but robust method is introduced to characterize the shape of the Doppler spectra derived from observations at both frequencies. Spectral shapes are quantified with one simple fitting parameter of a generalized fit to the autocorrelation function (=Fourier transform of the Doppler spectrum). This parameter takes a value of 1 for a Lorentzian spectrum indicative of pure incoherent scatter from the D-region, a value of 2 for coherent scatter owing to turbulence, and a value of less than 1 for incoherent scatter modified by the presence of charged aerosol particles. This method is applicable to observations at altitudes between ∼70 and ∼90 km. Simultaneous observations with the EISCAT VHF and UHF radar are presented in which all three cases mentioned above are identified. For the case of incoherent scatter modified by the presence of charged aerosol particles we quantify the radius of the involved ice particles to exceed ∼5 nm. Most importantly, however, for the case where the UHF-signal exceeded the incoherent scatter signal significantly, the spectrum revealed a clear Gaussian shape indicative of a coherent scattering process with identical spectral width as for the VHF-observations. This finding gives strong support that both echoes are created by the same turbulence-based mechanism and not by different mechanisms as speculated by several previous authors.     

Resonant Scattering of X-ray Emission Lines in the Hot Intergalactic Medium

While very often a hot intergalactic medium (IGM) is optically thin to continuum radiation, the optical depth in resonant lines can be of order unity or larger. Resonant scattering in the brightest X-ray emission lines can cause distortions in the surface brightness distribution, spurious variations in the abundance of heavy elements, changes in line spectral shapes and even polarization of line emission. The magnitude of these effects not only depends on the density, temperature and ionization state of the gas, but is also sensitive to the characteristics of the gas velocity field. This opens a possibility to use resonant scattering as a convenient and powerful tool to study IGM properties. We discuss the application of these effects to galaxy clusters.     

Searching for life in extreme environments relevant to Jovian’s Europa: Lessons from subglacial ice studies at Lake Vostok (East Antarctica)

The objective was to estimate the genuine microbial content of ice samples from refrozen water (accretion ice) from the subglacial Lake Vostok (Antarctica) buried beneath the 4-km thick East Antarctic ice sheet. The samples were extracted by heavy deep ice drilling from 3659 m below the surface. High pressure, a low carbon and chemical content, isolation, complete darkness and the probable excess of oxygen in water for millions of years characterize this extreme environment. A decontamination protocol was first applied to samples selected for the absence of cracks to remove the outer part contaminated by handling and drilling fluid. Preliminary indications showed the accretion ice samples to be almost gas free with a low impurity content. Flow cytometry showed the very low unevenly distributed biomass while repeated microscopic observations were unsuccessful.     

X-Ray Spectroscopy of Galaxy Clusters: Beyond the CIE Modeling

X-ray spectra of galaxy clusters are dominated by the thermal emission from the hot intracluster medium. In some cases, besides the thermal component, spectral models require additional components associated, e.g., with resonant scattering and charge exchange. The latter produces mostly underluminous fine spectral features. Detection of the extra components therefore requires high spectral resolution. The upcoming X-ray missions will provide such high resolution, and will allow spectroscopic diagnostics of clusters beyond the current simple thermal modeling. A representative science case is resonant scattering, which produces spectral distortions of the emission lines from the dominant thermal component. Accounting for the resonant scattering is essential for accurate abundance and gas motion measurements of the ICM. The high resolution spectroscopy might also reveal/corroborate a number of new spectral components, including the excitation by non-thermal electrons, the deviation from ionization equilibrium, and charge exchange from surface of cold gas clouds in clusters. Apart from detecting new features, future high resolution spectroscopy will also enable a much better measurement of the thermal component. Accurate atomic database and appropriate modeling of the thermal spectrum are therefore needed for interpreting the data.     

The links between atmospheric vorticity,radiation belt electrons,and the solar wind

The links between winter storm intensity and solar wind variations associated with Heliospheric Current Sheet (HCS) crossings are shown to be present in 1997 through 2002 data without the necessity of high stratospheric aerosol loading.