A Lyapunov-like approach to performance analysis of 3-dimensionalpure PNG laws

The 3-dimensional PPNG (pure proportional navigation guidance) law was proposed about forty years ago, but its performance has been analyzed only on the basis of the linearized trajectory equations, which are valid locally around the collision course. We take into full account the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of pursuit situation in the 3-dimensional space to analyze the performance of the 3-dimensional PPNG law more rigorously. We prove that a missile guided by the 3-dimensional PPNG law can always intercept a target maneuvering randomly in the 3-dimensional space if 1) the target acceleration varies with a known bound, 2) the navigation constant is selected large, and either 3a) the initial heading error is small or 3b) the missile keeps the head toward the target during flight. We also propose a modified PNG law, which seems to exhibit better performance at the final phase of pursuit than the conventional PPNG law. We introduce a Lyapunov-like method that proves to be a very powerful tool in obtaining our results     

空间目标的空基红外测量技术

地基红外测量系统由于受大气衰减和天空背景的影响,对空间目标的探测能力有限。针对此问题,提出了采用空基红外测量系统实现空间目标红外特性测量的设想,通过从决定红外测量系统探测能力的信噪比和调制对比度2个方面出发,推导出了红外测量系统作用距离公式。并利用大气传输软件计算了长波红外在不同高度下的大气透过率、天空背景,理论分析给出了不同高度的空基红外测量系统对不同辐射面积空间目标的探测距离。仿真结果表明,当空基平台高度大于10km时,长波红外不仅可以观测到光照区内的低轨空间目标,而且还可以观测到阴影区内辐射面积不小于40m~2的低轨空间目标。     

基于MBSE的月球科研站任务分析

月球探测在完成“绕落回”三步走后，从单点短期探测向建设月面基础设施的月球科研站长期探测转变，给月球探测任务的规划论证、总体设计、系统研制和在轨探测等提出了更高要求。本文采用基于模型的系统工程（MBSE）思想，提出适宜的基于模型的月球科研站系统分析正向流程，以系统模型作为载体依次深入剖析任务总体、任务使命需求和任务应用场景。通过开展基于模型的月球科研站任务分析，初步实现了月球科研站任务分析过程正向化、设计要素定义全量化、设计要素之间的关联表达显性化、月球科研站工程总体单位下发的研制要求有源化。     

SIRTF — The moderate mission

The Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) has been planned by NASA and the US scientific and aerospace communities as a cryogenically-cooled observatory for infrared astronomy from space. Within the past few years, severe pressures on NASA's budget have led to the cancellation of many programs and to dramatic rescoping of others; SIRTF is in the latter category. This paper describes the resulting redefinition of SIRTF and the technical innovations which have made it possible to package SIRTF's key scientific capabilities into the envelope of a moderate-class mission.     

Electronic technologies that enables aerospace

This section highlights early electronics milestones that have made significant contributions to aerospace and defense. Today everyone thinks digital, whereas more than 50% of electronic advances since society founding 50 years ago were in the analog or continuous domain. It is too easy to forget that before the 1970s and 1980s analog systems had been the norm. Digital electronics emerged late in WWII, when the US Army contracted with the University of Pennsylvania to compute extensive artillery firing tables. The Cold War substantially accelerated advances in solid state electronics which led to the microelectronics that are so ubiquitous today. Defense and then aerospace programs were symbiotic with electronics in the development and mass production of transistors, integrated circuits, microelectronics, microprocessors, magnetic and then solid state memory. Small, reliable, low power and high performance electronics were the key to aerospace progress. The government backed virtually all these developments out of necessity. The power of computers has increased by over a million since 1972 and is still climbing. The initial enabling technology for advances in military electronics was the almost forgotten vacuum tube. The existence of electrons was first recognized as the “Edison Effect” in 1883. The seminal event in electronics was the audion invented by Lee De Forrest in 1906. The audion appeared just three years after the first Wright brother's flight and four years before the Army purchased their first Wright airplane. Up until the World War I (WWI) radio amateurs were the electronics pioneers, but the war created new demand for radio communications. Electronics expanded from communications into radar, navigation and control systems in World War II (WWII). Both wars brought about dramatic improvements in electronics, which resulted in a surplus of equipment and trained personnel to fuel postwar advances     

Future Space Missions to Search for Terrestrial Planets

Since the first exoplanet was discovered more than 10 years ago, this field has developed rapidly. Currently we know of more than 200 external systems of stars and planets, apart from our own, but what has become the ‘holy grail’ of exoplanetary research is still eluding us. Here we are, of course, referring to solar systems like our own, containing a number of terrestrial or ‘rocky’ planets orbiting within the so-called ‘habitable zone’, and with giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn—which mostly or totally consist of elements as H or He—at distance much further out from the central star. No such system have to date been discovered around anything resembling our Sun, albeit because of observational biases. Nevertheless, in order to develop the emerging science discipline of Comparative Planetology, we will have to utilize new techniques that will enable us to search for, and then study in detail such systems in an un-biased fashion. This paper describes the emerging techniques and space missions that will allow, finally, the investigation of planets capable of hosting life as we know it.     

Experimental work on the aerodynamics of integrated slender wings for supersonic flight

This paper reviews an extensive programme of experimental work which was aimed at the production of integrated slender wings which had volume distributions and cross-section shapes compatible with the requirements of a supersonic transport aircraft. The wings were also to be cambered so that they were trimmed at the cruise condition about a centre of gravity position located at the aerodynamic centre position at the approach condition; furthermore the camber was to be chosen so that the drag was as low as possible. The main work was carried out about 20 years ago, but the involvement in specific design applications resulted in no overall account of the programme being published, although a number of reports on individual wings, or groups of wings, have appeared. This paper reviews the whole programme from the initial tests on very simple delta wings with diamond cross-sections to the final tests on realistic shapes which achieved almost all of the design requirements.     

Measuring the Earth’s Magnetic Field from Space: Concepts of Past, Present and Future Missions

Observations of the Earth’s magnetic field from low-Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites started very early on, more than 50 years ago. Continuous such observations, relying on more advanced technology and mission concepts, have however only been available since 1999. The unprecedented time-space coverage of this recent data set opened revolutionary new possibilities for monitoring, understanding and exploring the Earth’s magnetic field. In the near future, the three-satellite Swarm constellation concept to be launched by ESA, will not only ensure continuity of such measurements, but also provide enhanced possibilities to improve on our ability to characterize and understand the many sources that produce this field. In the present paper we review and discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the various LEO space magnetometry concepts that have been used so far, and report on the motivations that led to the latest Swarm constellation concept. We conclude with some considerations about future concepts that could possibly be implemented to ensure the much needed continuity of LEO space magnetometry, possibly with enhanced scientific return, by the time the Swarm mission ends.     

Two centuries of study of Algol systems

The periodicity of the light variation of Algol, discovered just over 200 years ago, may be regarded as the beginning of the study of eclipsing binary systems, especially those of the Algol type. Such studies, however, gained no real momentum until Vogel, 100 years ago, demonstrated by spectroscopy that the binary hypothesis of Algol's light changes is, in its essentials, correct. Three elements were needed to give us our modern notions of evolution by mass-transfer, namely: (i) results of combined analysis of light-curves and velocity-curves, (ii) evidence of circumstellar matter within binary systems and (iii) the notion that at least one component of an Algol system was near the limit of dynamical stability. All three entered the literature within about a decade, approximately halfway through the second century of eclipsing-binary studies; but it is the computational and instrumental developments of the last 25 years that have made real progress possible. We still lack commensurate theoretical developments, and the whole question of the contribution of Algol systems to the development of the Galaxy has barely been considered.     

Triggering Protostellar Collapse, Injection, and Disk Formation

Certain meteoritical inclusions contain evidence for the existence of short-lived radioactivities such as ²⁶Al and ⁴¹Ca at the time of their formation 4.566 billion years ago. Because the half-lives of these nuclides are so short, this evidence requires that no more than about a million years elapsed between their nucleosynthesis and their inclusion in cm-sized solids in the solar nebula. This abbreviated time span can be explained if these nuclides were synthesized in a stellar source such as a supernova, and were then transported across the interstellar medium by the resulting shock wave, which then triggered the gravitational collapse of the presolar molecular cloud core. Detailed 2D and 3D numerical hydrodynamical models are reviewed and show that such a scenario is consistent with the time scale constraint, and with the need to both trigger collapse and to inject shock-wave matter into the collapsing protostellar cloud and onto the protoplanetary disk formed by the collapse. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Two centuries of study of Algol systems

The periodicity of the light variation of Algol, discovered just over 200 years ago, may be regarded as the beginning of the study of eclipsing binary systems, especially those of the Algol type. Such studies, however, gained no real momentum until Vogel, 100 years ago, demonstrated by spectroscopy that the binary hypothesis of Algol's light changes is, in its essentials, correct. Three elements were needed to give us our modern notions of evolution by mass-transfer, namely: (i) results of combined analysis of light-curves and velocity-curves, (ii) evidence of circumstellar matter within binary systems and (iii) the notion that at least one component of an Algol system was near the limit of dynamical stability. All three entered the literature within about a decade, approximately halfway through the second century of eclipsing-binary studies; but it is the computational and instrumental developments of the last 25 years that have made real progress possible. We still lack commensurate theoretical developments, and the whole question of the contribution of Algol systems to the development of the Galaxy has barely been considered.     

Evolution of the Moon: The 1974 model

The geology of the decade of Apollo and Luna probably will become one of the fundamental turning points in the history of all science. For the first time, the scientists of the Earth have been presented with the opportunity to interpret their home planet through the direct investigations of another. Mankind can be proud and take heart in this fact. The interpretive evolution of the Moon can be divided now into seven major stages beginning sometime near the end of the formation of the solar system. These stages and their approximate durations in time are as follows:

1. The Beginning — 4.6 billion years ago.
2. The Melted Shell — 4.6–4.4 billion years ago.
3. The Cratered Highlands — 4.4–4.1 billion years ago.
4. The Large Basins — 4.1–3.9 billion years ago.
5. The Light-colored Plains — 3.9–3.8 billion years ago.
6. The Basaltic Maria — 3.8–3.0 (?) billion years ago.
7. The Quiet Crust — 3.0 (?) billion years ago to the present.

The Apollo and Luna explorations that permit us to study these stages of evolution each have contributed in progressive and significant ways. Through them we now can look with new insight into the early differentiation of the Earth, the nature of the Earth's protocrust, the influence of the formation of large impact basins in that crust, the effects of early partial melting of the protomantle and possibly the earliest stages of the breakup of the protocrust into continents and ocean basins.     

Isotopic Fractionation by Plasma Processes

The Sun is the largest reservoir of matter in the solar system, which formed 4.6 Gy ago from the protosolar nebula. The solar wind carries a nearly unfractionated sample of heavy isotopes at energies of about 1 keV/amu from the Sun into interplanetary space. Data from space missions and theoretical models indicate that the isotopes of the volatile elements N, O, Ne, and Ar are fractionated by at most a few percent per atomic mass unit in different solar wind regimes. In contrast, isotopic abundances of solar and heliospheric energetic particles at energies larger than about 100 keV/amu are observed to strongly vary relative to solar abundances. Processes such as resonant acceleration or pre-acceleration by plasma waves, first-order Fermi acceleration, or propagation in the interplanetary plasma are discussed as causes for charge-to-mass dependent fractionation. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

一种基于红外图像的目标自动识别算法

红外成像制导具有在各种复杂战术环境下自主搜索、捕获、识别和跟踪目标的能力,代表了当代红外制导技术的发展趋势。提出了一种红外图像预处理、跟踪、分类的自动目标识别算法,利用小波变换、形态学方法对红外图像进行预处理,提取不同频带的惯性不变矩作为特征量,利用神经网络进行分类识别,结果表明该算法具有很高的识别率,对于精确制导武器的目标识别研究具有一定的参考价值。     

An Enduring Partnership Professional, Cultural, Personat

20 years ago, in September 1987, an adventure began which was unique in aviation/aerospace publishing. That adventure led to a multimedia partnership which has grown stronger every year since 1987 and developed into a lasting friendship and global business alliance that continues today.     

Aerospace High Voltage Development

High voltage has been used for electrical power system generation, transmission, and distribution for over 75 years and manufacturers have been designing x-rays, radios/television transmitters and receivers for many years with excellent success. High voltage usage in aerospace equipment initiated during World War II with the advent of high power communications and radar for airplanes. About 20 years ago the first high voltage components were built for spacecraft systems. This article is to provide some insight into the status of high voltage for aerospace equipment and the differences between terrestial and aerospace system functions and the attendant problems. What are the basic differences between terrestial/commercial and aerospace equipment? The aerospace environment is defined as that significantly above the Earth's surface: From 5000 feet altitude to deep space. The basic differences are the constraints placed on the user vehicle (airplane, missile, or spacecraft). Constraints include: Atmospheric pressure, temperature, lifting capability, electronic requirements, and volume. Early airplanes needed only radios and mechanical pressurization instruments. Today's sophisticted airplanes require transmitters, receivers, controls, displays, and in the military case, special electronics. The addition of electronic devices has increased the electrical power demand from a few watts (for early aircraft) to well over one megawatt for special applications. There is the need for compact packaging to reduce weight and volume. Spacecraft with booster limitations are ever more restrictive of weight and volume then airplanes while they must maintain complete electrical system integrity for mission durations of several months to years.     

Infrared telescope in space: IRTS

The IRTS is a first Japanese infrared satellite mission which will be launched on February of 1995 by HII rocket. The IRTS is one of the mission experiments aboard the small space platform, SFU. The telescope aperture of the IRTS is 15cm, but is cooled by liquid Helium to realize very low background condition. Four instruments are installed on the focal plane which cover wide wavelengths from near infrared to submillimeter regions. The IRTS is optimized to observe the diffuse extended emission, and will survey about 10% of the sky in 20 days of mission life. The IRTS will provide significant information on cosmology, interstellar matter, late type stars, and interplanetary dust.     

数值模拟喷焰2.7微米红外辐射特性

以固体火箭发动机尾喷焰的红外探测为主要应用背景,利用反向蒙特卡罗法和有限体积法计算了火箭尾喷焰红外辐射特性,获得了尾喷焰在探测波长为2.7μm下的红外辐射的空间、光谱分布特性,两种方法的计算结果也非常接近,具有重要的理论意义和实际应用背景。     

Unified approach to missile guidance laws: a 3D extension

Since the proportional navigation guidance law was first introduced, many of the researchers had proposed different methodologies to investigate the corresponding performances of all the existing guidance laws. Even though a unified approach was proposed a few years ago, other authors found that under the proposed framework, all the existing guidance laws, namely ideal proportional navigation (IPN), true proportional navigation (TPN), and pure proportional navigation (PPN), were indeed special cases of the mentioned general guidance law. However, the results were restricted to two-dimensional space. In this paper, the author not only extends the results to three-dimensional space, but also to general IPN (GIPN), general TPN (GTPN), and PPN. Unlike conventional researchers, a modified polar coordinate (MPC) is adopted. It is shown that with the property of this MPC, for the line of sight (LOS) based guidance laws (GIPN and GTPN) the number of differential equations required to fully describe the relative dynamics can be reduced from six to three, however, for the missile's velocity-based guidance law, i.e., PPN, five differential equations are required. All the terms of differential equations involve only products and additions of variables. For all the mentioned guidance laws in this paper, only two transformed variables are required to describe the capture region, while the third variable is required to provide the condition of finite turn rate.