Biological investigations aboard the biosatellite Cosmos-1129

Experiments on insects, higher plants and lower fungi were carried out aboard the biological satellite Cosmos-1129, in Earth orbit, from 25 September to 14 October 1979. The main objective of these experiments was to gain more profound knowledge of the effect of weightlessness on living organisms and to study the mechanisms by which these various organisms with different life cycles can adjust and develop in weightlessness. Experiments on insects ($\text{Drosophila melanogaster}$) were made with a view towards understanding gravitational preference in flies, the life cycle of which took place on board the biosatellite under conditions of artificial gravity. Experiments on higher plants ($\text{Zea mays, Arabidopsis taliana, Lycopersicum esculentum}$) and lower fungi ($\text{Physarum polycephalum}$) were performed.     

Heliopause stability revisited: dispersion analysis and numerical simulations

The heliopause, a surface separating the tenuous hot heliosheath flow and the dense, strongly magnetized interstellar flow, is subject to instabilities of the Rayleigh–Taylor and Kelvin–Helmholtz types. The dynamic evolution of this discontinuity is of considerable importance for understanding the neutral atom and cosmic-ray filtration at the interface. Here, we investigate the stability of the upwind heliopause in the presence of charge exchange collisions using both an analytic (dispersion relation) approach and a numerical model that includes the interstellar magnetic field. The linear analysis yields a cubic dispersion relation that admits imaginary solutions for the full range of wavenumbers, implying that the stagnation point on the heliopause is unconditionally Rayleigh–Taylor unstable to small perturbations propagating parallel to the discontinuity surface. We confirm this result by following the nonlinear development of the instability with a time-dependent simulation using a four fluid MHD-neutral numerical code. For the typical solar wind and LISM conditions, we obtain cyclical evolution of the upwind heliopause with a period of the order of 100 years. We also identify two areas of space physics where the instability may have important implications.     

A detailed FLUKA-2005 Monte-Carlo simulation for the ATIC detector

We have performed a detailed Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation for the Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) detector using the MC code FLUKA-2005 which is capable of simulating particles up to 10 PeV. The ATIC detector has completed two successful balloon flights from McMurdo, Antarctica lasting a total of more than 35 days. ATIC is designed as a multiple, long duration balloon flight, investigation of the cosmic ray spectra from below 50 GeV to near 100 TeV total energy; using a fully active Bismuth Germanate (BGO) calorimeter. It is equipped with a large mosaic of silicon detector pixels capable of charge identification, and, for particle tracking, three projective layers of x–y scintillator hodoscopes, located above, in the middle and below a 0.75 nuclear interaction length graphite target. Our simulations are part of an analysis package of both nuclear (A) and energy dependences for different nuclei interacting in the ATIC detector. The MC simulates the response of different components of the detector such as the Si-matrix, the scintillator hodoscopes and the BGO calorimeter to various nuclei. We present comparisons of the FLUKA-2005 MC calculations with GEANT calculations and with the ATIC CERN data.     

Effects of geomagnetic secular variations on cosmic ray access to the terrestrial environment

Taking advantage of the cutoff computations performed for more than a hundred locations from 1955 to 1995 [every 5 years; Shea, M.A., Smart, D.F. Vertical cutoff rigidities for cosmic ray stations since 1955, in: Proceedings of the ICRC 2001, Hamburg, Copernicus Gesellschaft, vol. 10, pp. 4063–4066, 2001], we carefully checked the relationship between the vertical cutoff rigidity and the McIlwain parameter introduced by Shea et al. [Shea, M.A., Smart, D.F., Gentile, L.C. Estimating cosmic ray vertical cutoff rigidities as a function of the McIlwain L-parameter for different epochs of the geomagnetic field. Phys. Earth Planet. Int., 48, 200–205, 1987]. We derived an updated algorithm that can be used outside the polar and equatorial regions, avoiding time consuming computations. Results for the European area and 1990 epoch suggest that the fast evaluation is accurate within 0.1 GV in 26 out of the 30 considered locations.     

Global and local geospace modeling in ISTP

The objective of the University of Maryland ISTP theory project is the development of the analytical and computational tools, which, combined with the data collected by the space and ground-based ISTP sensors, will lead to the construction of the first causal and predictive global geospace model. To attain this objective a research project composed of four complementary parts is conducted. First the global interaction of the solar wind-magnetosphe re system is studied using three-dimensional MHD simulations. Appropriate results of these simulations are made available to other ISTP investigators through the Central Data Handling Facility (CDHF) in a format suitable for comparison with the observations from the ISTP spacecrafts and ground instruments. Second, simulations of local processes are performed using a variety of non-MHD codes (hybrid, particle and multifluid) to study critical magnetospheric boundary layers, such as the magnetopause and the magnetotail. Third, a strong analytic effort using recently developed methods of nonlinear dynamics is conducted, to provide a complementary semi-empirical understanding of the nonlinear response of the magnetosphere and its parts to the solar wind input. The fourth part will be conducted during and following the data retrieval and its objective is to utilize the data base in conjunction with the above models to produce the next generation of global and local magnetospheric models. Special emphasis is paid to the development of advanced visualization packages that allow for interactive real time comparison of the experimental and computational data. Examples of the computational tools and of the ongoing investigations are presented.     

The Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) Instrument Aboard New Horizons

The Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument on New Horizons will measure the interaction between the solar wind and ions created by atmospheric loss from Pluto. These measurements provide a characterization of the total loss rate and allow us to examine the complex plasma interactions at Pluto for the first time. Constrained to fit within minimal resources, SWAP is optimized to make plasma-ion measurements at all rotation angles as the New Horizons spacecraft scans to image Pluto and Charon during the flyby. To meet these unique requirements, we combined a cylindrically symmetric retarding potential analyzer with small deflectors, a top-hat analyzer, and a redundant/coincidence detection scheme. This configuration allows for highly sensitive measurements and a controllable energy passband at all scan angles of the spacecraft.