Scientific objectives and payloads of Tianwen-1, China’s first Mars exploration mission

This paper describes the scientific objectives and payloads of Tianwen-1, China’s first exploration mission to Mars. An orbiter, carrying a lander and a rover, lifted-off in July 2020 for a journey to Mars where it should arrive in February 2021. A suite of 13 scientific payloads, for in-situ and remote sensing, autonomously commanded by integrated payload controllers and mounted on the orbiter and the rover will study the magnetosphere and ionosphere of Mars and the relation with the solar wind, the atmosphere, surface and subsurface of the planet, looking at the topography, composition and structure and in particular for subsurface ice. The mission will also investigate Mars climate history. It is expected that Tianwen-1 will contribute significantly to advance our scientific knowledge of Mars.     

Early analysis of precise orbit and clock offset determination for the satellites of the global BeiDou-3 system

Eight new-generation BeiDou satellites (BeiDou-3) have been launched into Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), allowing for global coverage since March 2018, and they are equipped with new hydrogen atomic clocks and updated rubidium clocks. Firstly, we analyzed the signals for the carrier-to-noise-density ratio (C/N0) and pseudorange multipath (MP) by using international GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) Monitoring and Assessment System (iGMAS) station data, and found that B1C has a lower C/N0, and B2a has the same level of C/N0 as the B1I and B3I signals. For pseudorange multipath, compared with the BeiDou-2 satellites, the obvious systematic variation of MP scatters related to the elevation angle is greatly improved for the BeiDou-3 and BeiDou-3e satellites signals. For the signals of the BeiDou-3 satellites, the order of the Root Mean Square (RMS) values of multipath and noise is B3I?<?B1I?<?B2a?<?B1C. Then, the comparison of the precise orbit determination and clock offset determination for the BeiDou-2, BeiDou-3, and BeiDou-3 experimental (BeiDou-3e) satellites was done by using 10 stations from iGMAS. The 3D precision of the 24?h orbit overlap is 24.55, 25.61, and 23.35?cm for the BeiDou-3, BeiDou-3e, and BeiDou-2 satellites, respectively. BeiDou-3 satellite has a comparable precision to that of the BeiDou-2 satellite. For the precision of clock offset estimation, the Standard Deviation (STD) of the BeiDou-3 MEO satellite is 0.350?ns, which is an improvement of 0.042?ns over that of the BeiDou-2 MEO satellite. The stabilities of the BeiDou-3 and BeiDou-3e onboard clocks are better than those of BeiDou-2 by factors of 2.84 and 1.61 at an averaging time of 1000 and 10,000?s, respectively.     

低温推进剂空间管理技术研究进展与展望

本文介绍了低温推进剂的性能优势与空间管理挑战，梳理了低温流体空间管理(CFM)技术特征及其研究现状，建议按照重力依赖型与重力无关型分类开展技术成熟度提升研究。调研了美国逾半个世纪的CFM技术搭载实验研究历程，分析了各类平台的工作特性与性能优势。基于我国航天发展现状与未来需求，探析了我国开展CFM技术攻关、飞行搭载实验的可行方案。建议在我国载人空间站规划舱内低温技术实验柜与舱外暴露平台实验模块，加速我国CFM技术向工程应用的转化。     

RTK model and positioning performance analysis using Galileo four-frequency observations

This paper proposes a real-time kinematic (RTK) model that uses one common reference satellite for the Galileo system with four frequency observations. In the proposed model, the double-differenced (DD) pseudorange and carrier phase biases among the different frequencies are estimated as unknown parameters to recover the integer features of the DD ambiguities among the different frequencies for ambiguity resolution and precise positioning. Analysis results show that the E5a, E5b, and E5 frequencies have virtually the same performance in terms of the positioning accuracy, observation residuals, and ratio values of ambiguity resolution. However, the E1 frequency performs worse than the E5a, E5b, and E5 frequencies. The RTK results for the combination of multiple frequencies are much better than those for a single-frequency observation, the coordinates’ standard deviation is improved about 20–30%, and the ambiguity fix time is improved about 10%.     

An Improved Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion Method for Altitude and Attitude Control of Nano Quad-Rotors under Persistent Uncertainties

Nonlinear dynamic inversion(NDI)has been applied to the control law design of quad-rotors mainly thanks to its good robustness and simplicity of parameter tuning.However,the weakness of relying on accurate model greatly restrains its application on quad-rotors,especially nano quad-rotors(NQRs).NQRs are easy to be influenced by uncertainties such as model uncertainties(mainly from complicated aerodynamic interferences,strong coupling in roll-pitch-yaw channels and inaccurate aerodynamic prediction of rotors)and external uncertainties(mainly from winds or gusts),particularly persistent ones.Therefore,developing accurate model for altitude and attitude control of NQRs is difficult.To solve this problem,in this paper,an improved nonlinear dynamic inversion(INDI)method is developed,which can reject the above-mentioned uncertainties by estimating them and then counteracting in real time using linear extended state observer(LESO).Comparison with the traditional NDI(TNDI)method was carried out numerically,and the results show that,in coping with persistent uncertainties,the INDI-based method presents significant superiority.     

Impact of rain on wave retrieval from Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar images in tropical cyclones

The main objective of our work was to investigate the impact of rain on wave observations from C-band (~5.3 GHz) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in tropical cyclones. In this study, 10 Sentinel-1 SAR images were available from the Satellite Hurricane Observation Campaign, which were taken under cyclonic conditions during the 2016 hurricane season. The third-generation wave model, known as Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) (version 41.31), was used to simulate the wave fields corresponding to these Sentinel-1 SAR images. In addition, rainfall data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite passing over the spatial coverage of the Sentinel-1 SAR images were collected. The simulated results were validated against significant wave heights (SWHs) from the Jason-2 altimeter and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts data, revealing a root mean square error (RMSE) of ~0.5 m with a 0.25 scatter index. Winds retrieved from the VH-polarized Sentinel-1 SAR images using the Sentinel-1 Extra Wide-swath Mode Wind Speed Retrieval Model after Noise Removal were taken as prior information for wave retrieval. It was discovered that rain did indeed affect the SAR wave retrieval, as evidenced by the 3.21-m RMSE of SWHs between the SAR images and the SWAN model, which was obtained for the ~1000 match-ups with raindrops. The raindrops dampened the wave retrieval when the rain rate was < ~5 mm/hr; however, they enhanced wave retrieval for higher rain rates. It was also found that the portion of the rain-induced ring wave with a wave number > 0.05 rad/m (~125 m wavelength) was clearly observed in the SAR-derived wave spectra.     

多机并联火箭羽流流场及其底部热环境分析

For the problem that the plume flow field structure of a multi engine parallel rocket is complicated and the bottom thermal environment is extremely harsh, which may cause the failure of the engine structural components, the plume flow field and thermal environment at different altitudes are studied through numerical simulation. The result is compared with the measured results in flight which shows that when the rocket is flying at a low altitude, the plume of the engines do not interfere with each other. As the flight altitude increases, the plumes gradually expand and begin to interfere with each other, and finally there is an obvious backflow at the bottom of the rocket. The maximum heat flux at the moment of take off is basically the same as the measured value in flight. Before the backflow occurs, the heat flux mainly consists of radiant heat, the convective heat flow increases as the flight altitude grows, but it is also much smaller than the peak heat flow at takeoff. The result has certain guiding significance for the optimal design of engine structure thermal protection.