East–West Station-Keeping maneuver strategy for COMS satellite using iterative process

The first Korean multi-mission geostationary satellite, Communication, Ocean, and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) will be launched in 2010. The missions of this satellite will be Ka-band communications, ocean color monitoring, and meteorological imaging. The satellite was designed with only one solar array on the south panel. This novel configuration will keep imaging instruments on the north side from heating up. Asymmetry of the spacecraft configuration requires twice-a-day thruster-based Wheel Off-Loading (WOL) operations to keep the satellite attitude for imaging and communication. Thruster firings during the WOL operations cause the satellite orbit to change two times a day. Weekly East–West Station-Keeping (EWSK) and North–South Station-Keeping (NSSK) maneuver operations are planned for the COMS satellite in order to maintain the satellite in ±0.05° box at 128.2°E longitude.     

A study of long-term climatology of ionospheric irregularities by using GPS phase fluctuations at the Brazilian longitudes

We have examined the ionospheric plasma irregularities that were recorded by using three ground-based receivers of the global positioning system (GPS) located at Brazilian longitudes during the period of a complete solar cycle, 1995–2005. The statistic results show that ionospheric irregularities are very easy to occur in December solstice months but rare to occur in June solstice months. Besides, the occurrence rates of irregularities in both December and June solstice months are little dependent on solar activity. However, in equinoctial months, the development of irregularities is obviously dependent on solar activity. There is a new finding in this study that if strong irregularities are distinguished from moderate ones, their occurrence rates would increase with solar activity during the December solstice months.     

基于Reynolds平均的高超声速二方程湍流模型

 在Reynolds平均的框架下推导了可压缩湍流Reynolds应力方程和湍动能方程。根据一定的假设和尺度分析简化并封闭了所推导的湍动能方程。在均匀湍流假设下,湍动能耗散率可分解成可压缩性耗散和旋度耗散,并对其中的可压缩性耗散进行了封闭;同时认为旋度耗散不受可压缩性影响,直接引用传统的Reynolds平均不可压缩湍动能耗散率模型方程。由此构造了适用于高马赫数的二方程可压缩湍流模型。应用所发展的模型计算了高超声速平板绕流,并与若干现有模型的计算、实验与半经验公式的计算结果进行了对比,验证了所发展的模型。在此基础上,通过对压缩拐角的高超声速湍流的数值模拟,对所发展的湍流模型,以及若干现有模型进行了对比,显示了不同湍流模型及可压缩性修正在计算壁面压力分布和热流分布上的特点,说明了湍流模型可压缩修正的必要性,得到了所发展模型的计算结果最接近实验结果的结论。     

Legal analysis of Sea Launch license: National security and environmental concerns

This paper analyzes the national security and environmental concerns surrounding the Sea Launch consortium's international license from a legal perspective. The growing market demand for a more affordable, reliable, and convenient commercial satellite launching service has led to the idea of Sea Launch—launching satellites from the sea near the Equator. However, this can pose potential conflicts between national security and foreign policy interests, and between environmental conservation and economic growth because of the international technology development issues around launching from the sea. This paper illustrates a case for balancing such multiple constraints via legal interpretation. The analysis is conducted in reference to 49 U.S.C. § 70101–70119 Commercial Space Launch Activities and 42 U.S.C. § 4321–4345 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. The paper also examines weather the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is binding on Sea Launch operations. Although the scope of this paper is limited mostly to the US law and the national security and environmental aspects of Sea Launch, it provides a useful example for policy making of an international collaborative technology development project.     

Effects of solar activity variations on the low latitude topside nighttime ionosphere

We have studied the topside nighttime ionosphere of the low latitude region using data obtained from DMSP F15, ROCSAT-1, KOMPSAT-1, and GUVI on the TIMED satellite for the period of 2000–2004, during which solar activity decreased from its maximum. As these satellites operated at different altitudes, we were able to discriminate altitude dependence of several key ionospheric parameters on the level of solar activity. For example, with intensifying solar activity, electron density was seen to increase more rapidly at higher altitudes than at lower altitudes, implying that the corresponding scale height also increased. The density increased without saturation at all observed altitudes when plotted against solar EUV flux instead of F10.7. The results of the present study, as compared with those of previous studies for lower altitudes, indicate that topside vertical scale height increases with altitude and that, when solar activity increases, topside vertical scale height increases more rapidly at higher altitudes than at lower altitudes. Temperature also increased more rapidly at higher altitudes than at lower altitudes as solar activity increased. In addition, the height of the F2 peak was seen to increase with increasing solar activity, along with the oxygen ion fraction measured above the F2 peak. These results confirm that the topside ionosphere rises and expands with increasing solar activity.     

Mission feasibility analysis on deflecting Earth-crossing objects using a power limited laser ablating spacecraft

This paper analyzes several mission capabilities to deflect Earth-crossing objects (ECOs) using a conceptual future spacecraft with a power limited laser ablating tool. A constrained optimization problem is formulated based on nonlinear programming with a three-dimensional patched conic method. System dynamics are also established, considering the target ECO’s orbit as being continuously perturbed by limited laser power. The required optimal operating duration and operating angle history of the laser ablating tool are computed for various types of ECOs to avoid an Earth impact. The available final warning time is also determined with a given limited laser power. As a result, detailed laser operating behaviors are presented and discussed, which include characteristics of operating duration and angle variation histories in relation to the operation’s start time and target object’s properties. The calculated durations of the optimal laser operation are also compared to those estimated with first-order approximations previous studies. It is discovered that the duration of the laser operation estimated with first-order approximations could result in up to about 50% error if the operation is started at the final warning time. The laser operation should be started as early as possible because an early start requires a short operating duration with a small operating angle variation. The mission feasibility demonstrated in the present study will give various insights into preparing future deflection missions using power limited spacecraft with a laser ablation tool.     

Evaluation of a Geiger-mode imaging flash lidar in the approach phase for autonomous safe landing on the Moon

The imaging flash lidar has been considered as a promising sensor for the future space missions such as autonomous safe landing, spacecraft rendezvous and docking due to its ability to provide a full 3D scene with a single or multiple laser pulses. The linear-mode flash lidar has been developed and demonstrated for an autonomous safe landing on the Moon in order to provide an accurate distance measurement to the landing site and its 3D image. Yet, the Geiger-mode flash lidar has also been recognized as an emerging technology for the space missions because it is highly sensitive even to a single photon and provides the very accurate timing of photon arrival. In this study, the performance of the Geiger-mode flash lidar is simulated in the approach phase and evaluated for the autonomous landing on the Moon. Furthermore, a new statistical signal processing algorithm is proposed to remove the noise counts in order to obtain the 3D image from a sequence of laser pulses in the situation of the fast moving spacecraft. The algorithm is shown to be effective for the autonomous landing due to its ability to remove noise events under the condition of low signal-to-noise ratio and improve ranging accuracy.     

Adaptive Two-Stage Extended Kalman Filter for a Fault-Tolerant INS-GPS Loosely Coupled System

The well-known conventional Kalman filter requires an accurate system model and exact stochastic information. But in a number of situations, the system model has an unknown bias, which may degrade the performance of the Kalman filter or may cause the filter to diverge. The effect of the unknown bias may be more pronounced on the extended Kalman filter (EKF), which is a nonlinear filter. The two-stage extended Kalman filter (TEKF) with respect to this problem has been receiving considerable attention for a long time. Recently, the optimal two-stage Kalman filter (TKF) for linear stochastic systems with a constant bias or a random bias has been proposed by several researchers. A TEKF can also be similarly derived as the optimal TKF. In the case of a random bias, the TEKF assumes that the information of a random bi?s is known. But the information of a random bias is unknown or partially known in general. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an adaptive two-stage extended Kalman filter (ATEKF) using an adaptive fading EKF. To verify the performance of the proposed ATEKF, the ATEKF is applied to the INS-GPS (inertial navigation system-Global Positioning System) loosely coupled system with an unknown fault bias. The proposed ATEKF tracked/estimated the unknown bias effectively although the information about the random bias was unknown.     

Position-Domain Hatch Filter for Kinematic Differential GPS/GNSS

Motivated by the accuracy benefit of the Hatch gain compared with the Kalman-type gain and the advantage of position-domain (PD) filtering compared with range-domain (RD) filtering under frequent changes in visible satellite set, this paper proposes a PD Hatch filter for kinematic differential satellite-based positioning. It is shown that the Hatch gain generates white residual sequence in both the RD and the PD. An experiment result demonstrates that the proposed PD Hatch filter is advantageous in real-time kinematic positioning.     

A Review of Density Holes Upstream of Earth's Bow Shock

Larmor size transient structures with density depletions as large as 99% of ambient solar wind density levels occur commonly upstream of Earth＇s collisionless bow shock. These ＂density holes＂ have a me...