The Urey instrument: an advanced in situ organic and oxidant detector for Mars exploration

The Urey organic and oxidant detector consists of a suite of instruments designed to search for several classes of organic molecules in the martian regolith and ascertain whether these compounds were produced by biotic or abiotic processes using chirality measurements. These experiments will also determine the chemical stability of organic molecules within the host regolith based on the presence and chemical reactivity of surface and atmospheric oxidants. Urey has been selected for the Pasteur payload on the European Space Agency's (ESA's) upcoming 2013 ExoMars rover mission. The diverse and effective capabilities of Urey make it an integral part of the payload and will help to achieve a large portion of the mission's primary scientific objective: "to search for signs of past and present life on Mars." This instrument is named in honor of Harold Urey for his seminal contributions to the fields of cosmochemistry and the origin of life.     

JIRAM, the image spectrometer in the near infrared on board the Juno mission to Jupiter

The Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) has been accepted by NASA for inclusion in the New Frontiers mission "Juno," which will launch in August 2011. JIRAM will explore the dynamics and the chemistry of Jupiter's auroral regions by high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy. It will also analyze jovian hot spots to determine their vertical structure and infer possible mechanisms for their formation. JIRAM will sound the jovian meteorological layer to map moist convection and determine water abundance and other constituents at depths that correspond to several bars pressure. JIRAM is equipped with a single telescope that accommodates both an infrared camera and a spectrometer to facilitate a large observational flexibility in obtaining simultaneous images in the L and M bands with the spectral radiance over the central zone of the images. Moreover, JIRAM will be able to perform spectral imaging of the planet in the 2.0-5.0 microm interval of wavelengths with a spectral resolution better than 10 nm. Instrument design, modes, and observation strategy will be optimized for operations onboard a spinning satellite in polar orbit around Jupiter. The JIRAM heritage comes from Italian-made, visual-infrared imaging spectrometers dedicated to planetary exploration, such as VIMS-V on Cassini, VIRTIS on Rosetta and Venus Express, and VIR-MS on the Dawn mission.     

Cyanobacterial emergence at 2.8 gya and greenhouse feedbacks

Apparent cyanobacterial emergence at about 2.8 Gya coincides with the negative excursion in the organic carbon isotope record, which is the first strong evidence for the presence of atmospheric methane. The existence of weathering feedbacks in the carbonate-silicate cycle suggests that atmospheric and oceanic CO2 concentrations would have been high prior to the presence of a methane greenhouse (and thus the ocean would have had high bicarbonate concentrations). With the onset of a methane greenhouse, carbon dioxide concentrations would decrease. Bicarbonate has been proposed as the preferred reductant that preceded water for oxygenic photosynthesis in a bacterial photosynthetic precursor to cyanobacteria; with the drop of carbon dioxide level, Archean cyanobacteria emerged using water as a reductant instead of bicarbonate (Dismukes et al., 2001). Our thermodynamic calculations, with regard to this scenario, give at least a tenfold drop in aqueous CO2 levels with the onset of a methane-dominated greenhouse, assuming surface temperatures of about 60 degrees C and a drop in the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide from about 1 to 0.1 bars. The buildup of atmospheric methane could have been triggered by the boost in oceanic organic productivity that arose from the emergence of pre-cyanobacterial oxygenic phototrophy at about 2.8-3.0 Gya; high temperatures may have precluded an earlier emergence. A greenhouse transition timescale on the order of 50-100 million years is consistent with results from modeling the carbonate-silicate cycle. This is an alternative hypothesis to proposals of a tectonic driver for this apparent greenhouse transition.     

发动机技术升级

当今，发动机制造商在研发新型发动机和新修理技术时，非常重视降低油耗和增强耐久性，且为此不惜投入巨资。     

黑洞把光波拉长了

光波在空间中的行为和声波在流体里的行为有着神秘的相似性，连黑洞也可以在声学中找到对应。时空，会不会和爱因斯坦物理学诞生之前学界假想的以太一样，根本就是一种流体？爱因斯坦在1905年提出狭义相对论时，驳斥了一项19世纪的观点：光波是由一种假想介质以太的振动而产生的。     

屏间充气展开式多屏防护结构及其防护性能分析

为提高航天器空间碎片防护结构的防护性能,减小其发射体积,提出了一种可折叠发射的屏间充气展开式多屏防护结构,通过充气展开支撑管在轨充气展开,成型为多屏大间距防护结构.分析了展开式多屏防护结构的空间碎片防护性能,得到了屏间距对多屏结构防护性能的影响规律.结果表明:在相同面密度下,展开式多屏防护结构的防护性能显著优于单屏防护...     

ARTEMIS计划——欧空局的试用数据中继卫星

“高级中继和技术卫星”（ＡＲＴＥＭＩＳ）是欧洲空间局数据中继和技术卫星（ＤＲＴＭ）计划的一部分，该计划由两个独立部分组成；ＡＲＴＥＭＩＳ和数据中继卫星（ＤＲＳ），Ａｒｔｅｍｉｓ工程的主要包商是意大利的ＡＬＥＮＩＡＳＰＡＺＩＯ（ＡＬＳ），它领导了一个由若干欧洲和加拿大的大型公司组成的工业财团，ＡＬＳ目前正在制造这颗卫星，预计１９９８年中作好发射准备（发射时间已推至２０００年－译注）。本文第一部分介绍     

反恐之“路”——“宝石路”系列激光制导炸弹的改进

2006年3月，洛克希德&;#183;马丁公司和美国海军在加州中国湖试验场，成功对227千克的GBU-12“宝石路”Ⅱ双模制导炸弹（DMGB）进行一系列投放试验。由F／A-18“大黄蜂”战斗机共每次投放4颗DMGB，并配合各种复杂的机动飞行，以对这种炸弹在各种战术环境下的作战能力进行验证。试验表明，飞行员既可采用预先装定的目标坐标、也可采用由现有瞄准吊舱所获得的目标坐标，实施GPS／INS制导飞行、投放该双模制导炸弹。一次投放多颗DMGB对某一目标实施攻击的同时，可以采用激光照射方式对另一目标进行跟踪。     

ARTEMIS计划——欧空局的试用数据中继卫星

“高级中继和技术卫星”(ARTEMIS)是欧洲空间局数据中继和技术卫星(DRTM)计划的一部分,该计划由两个独立部分组成:ARTEMIS和数据中继卫星(DRS)。Artemis工程的主承包商是意大利的ALENIA SPAZIO(ALS),它领导了一个由若干欧洲和加拿大的大型公司组成的工业财团。ALS目前正在制造这颗卫星,预计1998年中作好发射准备(发射时间已推至2000年—译注)。 本文第一部分介绍Artemis卫星的性能和关键特性。Artemis是一颗地球同步卫星,用于数据中继(光、S/K波段载荷)关键技术的开发,还包括高级通信业务(用于移动通信的L波段载荷)的开发。 此外,Artemis还将试验一些能改进欧洲卫星平台的实用化技术(离子推进器,镍—氢电池和精密太阳传感器)。 为承载上述要求很荷刻的载荷,ALS开发了一种卫星平台,能承载600kg以上载荷,提供ZkW的功率。研制过程中特别强调开发一种可重复用于未来航天计划(例如数据中继卫星计划)的平台。卫星设计中密切注意了与多种运载火箭的兼容性,以适应绝大多数发射市场的运载火箭。 第三节介绍该星的开发方法。为使准备制造的各种研制模型最佳化,确保系统成功验证,制造了一系列子设备/装配系统的模型,并经过专门的质量检验测试,包括绝大多数环境试验,旨在降低未来卫星的成本。本文最后一节介绍该计划