Plasma resonance stimulation in space plasmas

Relaxation sounders proved to work very well in dilute plasmas far from the Earth. They provide a very powerful diagnostic tool. In the solar wind and magnetosheath, they give a sure and precise measurement of the electron density. In the magnetosphere, where detailed measurements on the f_Q resonances are possible, they provide, in addition, a determination of the electron temperature and drift velocity. Moreover, the possibility of oblique echoes in this region gives the perspective of obtaining even more information on the medium by detailed interpretation of the signals.     

Wireless sensor networks for planetary exploration: Experimental assessment of communication and deployment

Planetary surface exploration is an appealing application of wireless sensor networks that has been investigated in recent years by the space community, including the European Space Agency. The idea is to deploy a number of self-organizing sensor nodes forming a wireless networked architecture to provide a distributed instrument for the study and exploration of a planetary body. To explore this concept, ESA has funded the research project RF Wireless for Planetary Exploration (RF-WIPE), carried out by GMV, SUPSI and UPM. The purpose of RF-WIPE was to simulate and prototype a wireless sensor network in order to assess the potential and limitations of the technology for the purposes of planetary exploration.     

Survival of rock-colonizing organisms after 1.5 years in outer space

Cryptoendolithic microbial communities and epilithic lichens have been considered as appropriate candidates for the scenario of lithopanspermia, which proposes a natural interplanetary exchange of organisms by means of rocks that have been impact ejected from their planet of origin. So far, the hardiness of these terrestrial organisms in the severe and hostile conditions of space has not been tested over extended periods of time. A first long-term (1.5 years) exposure experiment in space was performed with a variety of rock-colonizing eukaryotic organisms at the International Space Station on board the European EXPOSE-E facility. Organisms were selected that are especially adapted to cope with the environmental extremes of their natural habitats. It was found that some-but not all-of those most robust microbial communities from extremely hostile regions on Earth are also partially resistant to the even more hostile environment of outer space, including high vacuum, temperature fluctuation, the full spectrum of extraterrestrial solar electromagnetic radiation, and cosmic ionizing radiation. Although the reported experimental period of 1.5 years in space is not comparable with the time spans of thousands or millions of years believed to be required for lithopanspermia, our data provide first evidence of the differential hardiness of cryptoendolithic communities in space.     

Turbulence, Magnetic Reconnection in Turbulent Fluids and Energetic Particle Acceleration

Turbulence is ubiquitous in astrophysics. It radically changes many astrophysical phenomena, in particular, the propagation and acceleration of cosmic rays. We present the modern understanding of compressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, in particular its decomposition into Alfvén, slow and fast modes, discuss the density structure of turbulent subsonic and supersonic media, as well as other relevant regimes of astrophysical turbulence. All this information is essential for understanding the energetic particle acceleration that we discuss further in the review. For instance, we show how fast and slow modes accelerate energetic particles through the second order Fermi acceleration, while density fluctuations generate magnetic fields in pre-shock regions enabling the first order Fermi acceleration of high energy cosmic rays. Very importantly, however, the first order Fermi cosmic ray acceleration is also possible in sites of magnetic reconnection. In the presence of turbulence this reconnection gets fast and we present numerical evidence supporting the predictions of the Lazarian and Vishniac (Astrophys. J. 517:700–718, 1999) model of fast reconnection. The efficiency of this process suggests that magnetic reconnection can release substantial amounts of energy in short periods of time. As the particle tracing numerical simulations show that the particles can be efficiently accelerated during the reconnection, we argue that the process of magnetic reconnection may be much more important for particle acceleration than it is currently accepted. In particular, we discuss the acceleration arising from reconnection as a possible origin of the anomalous cosmic rays measured by Voyagers as well as the origin cosmic ray excess in the direction of Heliotail.     

Evaluation Model of Design for Operation and Architecture of Hierarchical Virtual Simulation for Flight Vehicle Design

In order to take requirements for commercial operations or military missions into better consideration in new flight vehicle design, a tri-hierarchical task classification model of "design for operation" is proposed, which takes basic man-object interaction task, complex collaborative operation and large-scale joint operation into account. The corresponding general architecture of evaluation criteria is also depicted. Then a virtual simulation-based approach to implement the evaluations at three hierarchy levels is mainly analyzed with a detailed example, which validates the feasibility and effectiveness of evaluation architecture. Finally, extending the virtual simulation architecture from design to operation training is discussed.     

Nonlinear Adaptive Robust Force Control of Hydraulic Load Simulator

This paper deals with the high performance force control of hydraulic load simulator. Many previous works for hydraulic force control are based on their linearization equations, but hydraulic inherent nonlinear properties and uncertainties make the conventional feedback proportional-integral-derivative control not yield to high-performance requirements. In this paper, a nonlinear system model is derived and linear parameterization is made for adaptive control. Then a discontinuous projection-based nonlinear adaptive robust force controller is developed for hydraulic load simulator. The proposed controller constructs an asymptotically stable adaptive controller and adaptation laws, which can compensate for the system nonlinearities and uncertain parameters. Meanwhile a well-designed robust controller is also developed to cope with the hydraulic system uncertain nonlinearities. The controller achieves a guaranteed transient performance and final tracking accuracy in the presence of both parametric uncertainties and uncertain nonlinearities; in the absence of uncertain nonlinearities, the scheme also achieves asymptotic tracking performance. Simulation and experiment comparative results are obtained to verify the high-performance nature of the proposed control strategy and the tracking accuracy is greatly improved.     

Visualization Experiments of a Specific Fuel Flow Through Quartz-glass Tubes Under both Sub- and Supercritical Conditions

The present work is a visualization study of a typical kerosene (RP-3) flowing through vertical and horizontal quartz-glass tubes under both suband supercritical conditions by a high speed camera. The experiments are accomplished at temperatures of 300-730 K under pressures from 0.107-5 MPa. Six distinctive two-phase flow patterns are observed in upward flow and the critical point of RP-3 is identified as critical pressure pc=2.33 MPa and critical temperature Tc=645.04 K and it is found that when the fluid pressure exceeds 2.33 MPa the flow can be considered as a single phase flow. The critical opalescence phenomenon of RP-3 is observed when the temperature is between 643.16 K and 648.61 K and the pressure is between 2.308 MPa and 2.366 MPa. The region filled by the critical opalescence in the upward flow is clearly larger than that in the downward flow due to the interaction between the buoyancy force and fluid inertia. Morecover, obvious layered flow phenomenon is observed in horizontal flow under supercritical pressures due to the differences of gravity and density.     

中国民航运输系统性测度研究

对民航运输系统发展程度的有效测度是实现民航运输系统协同发展的前提和基础,从民航运输系统性内涵出发,构建了民航运输系统性测度模型。借助数据包络分析评价方法,建立了民航运输系统总体评价方法,基于协同理论建立了民航运输子系统协调度测度模型和方法。并应用所建立的模型和方法,对中国民航运输系统性状况进行了实证研究。研究结果表明,中国民航系统的有效性有待提高,航空公司系统、机场系统与空管系统两两之间均处于中度协调状态,动态协调度呈现出上升趋势。