The International DORIS Service (IDS): Toward maturity

DORIS is one of the four space-geodetic techniques participating in the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS), particularly to maintain and disseminate the Terrestrial Reference Frame as determined by International Earth rotation and Reference frame Service (IERS). A few years ago, under the umbrella of the International Association of Geodesy, a DORIS International Service (IDS) was created in order to foster international cooperation and to provide new scientific products. This paper addresses the organizational aspects of the IDS and presents some recent DORIS scientific results. It is for the first time that, in preparation of the ITRF2008, seven Analysis Centers (AC’s) contributed to derive long-term time series of DORIS stations positions. These solutions were then combined into a homogeneous time series IDS-2 for which a precision of less than 10 mm was obtained. Orbit comparisons between the various AC’s showed an excellent agreement in the radial component, both for the SPOT satellites (e.g. 0.5–2.1 cm RMS for SPOT-2) and Envisat (0.9–2.1 cm RMS), using different software packages, models, corrections and analysis strategies. There is now a wide international participation within IDS that should lead to future improvements in DORIS analysis strategies and DORIS-derived geodetic products.     

Lossless compression of stromatolite images: a biogenicity index?

It has been underappreciated that inorganic processes can produce stromatolites (laminated macroscopic constructions commonly attreibuted to microbiological activity), thus calling into question the long-standing use of stromatolites as de facto evidence for ancient life. Using lossless compression on unmagnified reflectance red-green-blue (RGB) images of matched stromatolite-sediment matrix pairs as a complexity metric, the compressibility index (delta(c), the log ratio of the ratio of the compressibility of the matrix versus the target) of a putative abiotic test stromatolite is significantly less than the delta(c) of a putative biotic test stromatolite. There is a clear separation in delta(c) between the different stromatolites discernible at the outcrop scale. In terms of absolute compressibility, the sediment matrix between the stromatolite columns was low in both cases, the putative abiotic stromatolite was similar to the intracolumnar sediment, and the putative biotic stromatolite was much greater (again discernible at the outcrop scale). We propose tht this metric would be useful for evaluating the biogenicity of images obtained by the camera systems available on every Mars surface probe launched to date including Viking, Pathfinder, Beagle, and the two Mars Exploration Rovers.     

Proposed Method for Instrument Landing of Aircraft Using Combined Radio and Inertial Guidance

The introduction of a satisfactory instrument landing system making use of existing ILAS radio systems would be of great economic value to the airline industry, and to other aeronautical activities requiring flying under low-visibility weather conditions. It is the purpose of this correspondence to indicate a possible solution to this problem of many years' standing, and to comment on the use of existing facilities as the basis for this solution.     

On the stability of spinning satellites

We study the directional stability of rigid and deformable spinning satellites in terms of two attitude angles. The linearized attitude motion of a free system about an assumed uniform-spin reference solution leads to a generic MGK system when the satellite is rigid or deformable. In terms of Lyapunov’s stability theory, we investigate the stability with respect to a subset of the variables. For a rigid body, the MGK system is 6-dimensional, i.e., 3 rotational and 3 translational variables. When flexible parts are present the system can have any arbitrary dimension. The 2×2 McIntyre–Myiagi stability matrix gives sufficient conditions for the attitude stability. A further development of this method has led to the Equivalent Rigid Body method. We propose an alternative practical method to establish sufficiency conditions for directional stability by using the Frobenius–Schur reduction formula. As practical applications we discuss a spinning satellite augmented with a spring–mass system and a rigid body appended with two cables and tip masses. In practice, the attitude stability must also be investigated when the spinning satellite is subject to a constant axial thrust. The generic format becomes MGKN as the thrust is a follower force. For a perfectly aligned thrust along the spin axis, Lyapunov’s indirect method remains valid also when deformable parts are present. We illustrate this case with an apogee motor burn in the presence of slag. When the thrust is not on the spin axis or not pointing parallel to the spin axis, the uniform-spin reference motion does not exist and none of the previous methods is applicable. In this case, the linearization may be performed about the initial state. Even when the linearized system has bounded solutions, the non-linear system can be unstable in general. We illustrate this situation by an instability that actually happened in-flight during a station-keeping maneuver of ESA’s GEOS-I satellite in 1979.     

Atmospheric Ions and Aerosol Formation

This paper discusses atmospheric ions and their role in aerosol formation. Emphasis is placed upon the upper troposphere where very low temperatures tend to facilitate new particle formation by nucleation. New measurements addressed include: Laboratory measurements of cluster ions, aircraft measurements of ambient atmospheric ions, atmospheric measurements of the powerful nucleating gas H₂SO₄ and its gaseous precursor SO₂. The paper also discusses model simulations of aerosol formation and growth. It is concluded that in the upper troposphere new aerosol formation via ions is a frequent process with relatively large rates. However new particle formation by homogeneous nucleation which does not involve ions also seems to be efficient. The bottleneck in the formation of upper troposphere aerosol particles with sizes sufficiently large to be climate relevant is mostly not nucleation but sufficient growth of new and still very small particles. Our recent upper troposphere SO₂ measurements suggest that particle growth by gaseous sulphuric acid condensation can be efficient in certain circumstances. If so, cosmic ray mediated formation of CCN sized particles should at least occasionally be operative in the upper troposphere.     

IDS contribution to ITRF2008

For the first time, the International DORIS Service (IDS) has produced a technique level combination based on the contributions of seven analysis centers (ACs), including the European Space Operations Center (ESOC), Geodetic Observatory Pecny (GOP), Geoscience Australia (GAU), the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the Institut Géographique National (IGN), the Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences (INASAN, named as INA), and CNES/CLS (named as LCA). The ACs used five different software packages to process the DORIS data from 1992 to 2008, including NAPEOS (ESA), Bernese (GOP), GEODYN (GAU, GSC), GIPSY/OASIS (INA), and GINS (LCA). The data from seven DORIS satellites, TOPEX/Poseidon, SPOT-2, SPOT-3, SPOT-4, SPOT-5, Envisat and Jason-1 were processed and all the analysis centers produced weekly SINEX files in either variance–covariance or normal equation format. The processing by the analysis centers used the latest GRACE-derived gravity models, forward modelling of atmospheric gravity, updates to the radiation pressure modelling to improve the DORIS geocenter solutions, denser parameterization of empirically determined drag coefficients to improve station and EOP solutions, especially near the solar maximum in 2001–2002, updated troposphere mapping functions, and an ITRF2005-derived station set for orbit determination, DPOD2005. The CATREF software was used to process the weekly AC solutions, and produce three iterations of an IDS global weekly combination. Between the development of the initial solution IDS-1, and the final solution, IDS-3, the ACs improved their analysis strategies and submitted updated solutions to eliminate troposphere-derived biases in the solution scale, to reduce drag-related degradations in station positioning, and to refine the estimation strategy to improve the combination geocenter solution. An analysis of the frequency content of the individual AC geocenter and scale solutions was used as the basis to define the scale and geocenter of the IDS-3 combination. The final IDS-3 combination has an internal position consistency (WRMS) that is 15 to 20 mm before 2002 and 8 to 10 mm after 2002, when 4 or 5 satellites contribute to the weekly solutions. The final IDS-3 combination includes solutions for 130 DORIS stations on 67 different sites of which 35 have occupations over 16 years (1993.0–2009.0). The EOPs from the IDS-3 combination were compared with the IERS 05 C04 time series and the RMS agreement was 0.24 mas and 0.35 mas for the X and Y components of polar motion. The comparison to ITRF2005 in station position shows an agreement of 6 to 8 mm RMS in horizontal and 10.3 mm in height. The RMS comparison to ITRF2005 in station velocity is at 1.8 mm/year on the East component, to 1.2 mm/year in North component and 1.6 mm/year in height.     

1. Transport of Mass,Momentum and Energy in Planetary Magnetodisc Regions

The rapid rotation of the gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, leads to the formation of magnetodisc regions in their magnetospheric environments. In these regions, relatively cold plasma is confined towards the equatorial regions, and the magnetic field generated by the azimuthal (ring) current adds to the planetary dipole, forming radially distended field lines near the equatorial plane. The ensuing force balance in the equatorial magnetodisc is strongly influenced by centrifugal stress and by the thermal pressure of hot ion populations, whose thermal energy is large compared to the magnitude of their centrifugal potential energy. The sources of plasma for the Jovian and Kronian magnetospheres are the respective satellites Io (a volcanic moon) and Enceladus (an icy moon). The plasma produced by these sources is globally transported outwards through the respective magnetosphere, and ultimately lost from the system. One of the most studied mechanisms for this transport is flux tube interchange, a plasma instability which displaces mass but does not displace magnetic flux—an important observational constraint for any transport process. Pressure anisotropy is likely to play a role in the loss of plasma from these magnetospheres. This is especially the case for the Jovian system, which can harbour strong parallel pressures at the equatorial segments of rotating, expanding flux tubes, leading to these regions becoming unstable, blowing open and releasing their plasma. Plasma mass loss is also associated with magnetic reconnection events in the magnetotail regions. In this overview, we summarise some important observational and theoretical concepts associated with the production and transport of plasma in giant planet magnetodiscs. We begin by considering aspects of force balance in these systems, and their coupling with the ionospheres of their parent planets. We then describe the role of the interaction between neutral and ionized species, and how it determines the rate at which plasma mass and momentum are added to the magnetodisc. Following this, we describe the observational properties of plasma injections, and the consequent implications for the nature of global plasma transport and magnetodisc stability. The theory of the flux tube interchange instability is reviewed, and the influences of gravity and magnetic curvature on the instability are described. The interaction between simulated interchange plasma structures and Saturn’s moon Titan is discussed, and its relationship to observed periodic phenomena at Saturn is described. Finally, the observation, generation and evolution of plasma waves associated with mass loading in the magnetodisc regions is reviewed.     

Mathematical modeling of heat transfer process in a variable domain

In this paper, a brief review and generalization of studies on the heat transfer and heat conduction problem in a variable domain are presented. The equations of the process, where the boundary displacement velocity is the control, are obtained taking into account heat inflow. This article was submitted by the authors in English.