The Relativistic Proton Spectrometer (RPS) for the Radiation Belt Storm Probes Mission

The Relativistic Proton Spectrometer (RPS) on the Radiation Belt Storm Probes spacecraft is a particle spectrometer designed to measure the flux, angular distribution, and energy spectrum of protons from ～60 MeV to ～2000 MeV. RPS will investigate decades-old questions about the inner Van Allen belt proton environment: a nearby region of space that is relatively unexplored because of the hazards of spacecraft operation there and the difficulties in obtaining accurate proton measurements in an intense penetrating background. RPS is designed to provide the accuracy needed to answer questions about the sources and losses of the inner belt protons and to obtain the measurements required for the next-generation models of trapped protons in the magnetosphere. In addition to detailed information for individual protons, RPS features count rates at a 1-second timescale, internal radiation dosimetry, and information about electrostatic discharge events on the RBSP spacecraft that together will provide new information about space environmental hazards in the Earth’s magnetosphere.     

The Far Ultra-Violet Imager on the Icon Mission

ICON Far UltraViolet (FUV) imager contributes to the ICON science objectives by providing remote sensing measurements of the daytime and nighttime atmosphere/ionosphere. During sunlit atmospheric conditions, ICON FUV images the limb altitude profile in the shortwave (SW) band at 135.6 nm and the longwave (LW) band at 157 nm perpendicular to the satellite motion to retrieve the atmospheric O/N₂ ratio. In conditions of atmospheric darkness, ICON FUV measures the 135.6 nm recombination emission of \(\mathrm{O}^{+}\) ions used to compute the nighttime ionospheric altitude distribution. ICON Far UltraViolet (FUV) imager is a Czerny–Turner design Spectrographic Imager with two exit slits and corresponding back imager cameras that produce two independent images in separate wavelength bands on two detectors. All observations will be processed as limb altitude profiles. In addition, the ionospheric 135.6 nm data will be processed as longitude and latitude spatial maps to obtain images of ion distributions around regions of equatorial spread F. The ICON FUV optic axis is pointed 20 degrees below local horizontal and has a steering mirror that allows the field of view to be steered up to 30 degrees forward and aft, to keep the local magnetic meridian in the field of view. The detectors are micro channel plate (MCP) intensified FUV tubes with the phosphor fiber-optically coupled to Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs). The dual stack MCP-s amplify the photoelectron signals to overcome the CCD noise and the rapidly scanned frames are co-added to digitally create 12-second integrated images. Digital on-board signal processing is used to compensate for geometric distortion and satellite motion and to achieve data compression. The instrument was originally aligned in visible light by using a special grating and visible cameras. Final alignment, functional and environmental testing and calibration were performed in a large vacuum chamber with a UV source. The test and calibration program showed that ICON FUV meets its design requirements and is ready to be launched on the ICON spacecraft.     

Hardware reconfiguration algorithm in multiprocessor systems of integrated modular avionics

Reconfiguration of multiprocessor systems makes it possible to improve their failure-resistance that is especially important for the integrated modular avionics systems. The algorithm considered in this paper allows minimizing the reservation and providing the better safety level and more effective flight completion or even its further execution in the case of failures of airborne equipment.     

Effects of uncertainties and flexible dynamic contributions on the control of a spacecraft full-coupled model

One of the most important problems for performing a good design of the spacecraft attitude control law is connected to its robustness when some uncertainty parameters are present on the inertial and/or on the elastic characteristics of a satellite. These uncertainties are generally intrinsic on the modeling of complex structures and in the case of large flexible structures they can be also attributed to secondary effects associated to the elasticity. One of the most interesting issues in modeling large flexible space structures is associated to the evaluation of the inertia tensor which in general depends not only on the geometric ‘fixed’ characteristic of the satellite but also on its elastic displacements which of course in turn modify the ‘shape’ of the satellite. Usually these terms can be considered of a second order of magnitude if compared with the ones associated to the rigid part of a structure. However the increasing demand on the dimension of satellites due to the presence for instance of very large solar arrays (necessary to generate power) and/or large antennas has the necessity to investigate their effects on their global dynamic behavior in more details as a consequence. In the present paper a methodology based on classical Lagrangian approach coupled with a standard Finite Element tool has been used to derive the full dynamic equations of an orbiting flexible satellite under the actions of gravity, gravity gradient forces and attitude control. A particular attention has been paid to the study of the effects of flexibility on the inertial terms of the spacecraft which, as well known, influence its attitude dynamic behavior. Furthermore the effects of the attitude control authority and its robustness to the uncertainties on inertial and elastic parameters has been investigated and discussed.     

Magnetospheric signatures of auroral disturbances during the passage of the solar wind’s CIR and sheath regions

Based on Polar satellite data, the authors have studied the auroral disturbances that arose during the passage by the Earth of compressed plasma regions formed in front of high-speed solar wind streams (the CIR region) and in front of magnetic clouds (the Sheath region). The aurorae observed by the Polar satellite possessed basic signatures of a substorm: a localized onset and expansion toward the pole and westward and eastward. However, in these cases they had a very large size in longitude and latitude and occupied a very large area. All disturbances observed by the Polar satellite during the Sheath and CIR regions of the solar wind in December of 1996, in 1997–1998, and in 2000 were analyzed. Eight events during disturbance development in the ionosphere, when the Geotail satellite was located in the plasma sheet of the magnetospheric tail, were selected. It is shown that in all selected cases some typical signatures of substorm development in the magnetospheric tail were observed, namely: (1) fast plasma flows (flow reversal, i.e., from tailwards to Earthwards) and (2) a sharp decrease of the total pressure, which followed an interval of total pressure increase. One can draw the conclusion that in the CIR and Sheath regions with a high solar wind density, substorm disturbances of a specific type are observed, with large latitudinal and longitudinal size (sometimes occupying the entire polar cap).     

Telerobotics: problems and research needs

With major emphasis on simulation, a university laboratory telerobotics facility permits problems to be approached by groups of graduate students. Helmet-mounded displays provide realism; the slaving of the display to the human operator's viewpoint gives a sense of `telepresence' that may be useful for prolonged tasks. Using top-down 3-D model control of distant images allows distant images to be reduced to a few parameters to update the model used for display to the human operator in a preview model to circumvent, in part, the communication delay. Also, the model can be used as a format for supervisory control and permit short-term local autonomous operations. Image processing algorithms can be made simpler and faster without trying to construct sensible images from the bottom. Control studies of telerobots lead to preferential manual control modes and, in this university environment, to basic paradigms for human motion and thence, perhaps, to redesign of robotic control, trajectory path planning, and rehabilitation prosthetics. Speculation as to future industrial drives for this telerobotic field suggests efficient roles for government agencies such as NASA     

Time-frequency hop codes based upon extended quadratic congruences

Time-frequency hop codes are developed that can be used for coherent multiuser echolocation and asynchronous spread spectrum communication systems. They represent a compromise between Costas codes, which have nearly ideal autoambiguity but not so good cross-ambiguity properties, and linear congruential codes, which have nearly ideal cross-ambiguity but unattractive autoambiguity properties. Extended quadratic congruential code words are shown to have reasonably good autoambiguity and cross-ambiguity properties across the whole class of code sets considered. A uniform upper bound is placed on the entire cross-ambiguity function surface, and bounds are placed on the position and amplitude of spurious peaks in the autoambiguity function. These bounds depend on the time/bandwidth product and code length exclusively and lead naturally to a discussion of the design tradeoffs for these two parameters. Examples of typical autoambiguity and cross-ambiguity functions are given to illustrate the performance of the new codes     

Subspace array processing for the suppression of FM jamming in GPS receivers

The mitigation of FM interference in GPS receivers is considered. In difference to commonly assumed wideband and narrowband interferers, the FM interferers are wideband, but instantaneously narrowband, and as such, have clear time-frequency (TF) signatures that are distinct from the GPS coarse acquisition (C/A) spread spectrum code. In the proposed technique, the estimate of the FM interference instantaneous frequency (IF) and the interference spatial signature are used to construct the spatiotemporal interference subspace. The IF estimates can be provided using existing effective linear or bilinear TF methods. The undesired signal arrival is suppressed by projecting the input data on the interference orthogonal subspace. With a multisensor receiver, the distinctions in both the spatial and TF signatures of signal arrivals allow effective interference suppressions. The deterministic nature of the signal model is considered and the known underlying structure of the GPS C/A code is utilized. We derive the receiver signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) under exact and perturbed IF values. The effect of IF estimation errors on both pseudorange measurements and navigation data recovery is analyzed. Simulation results comparing the receiver performances under IF errors in single and multiantenna GPS receivers are provided.     

Real-time translational control of a MEMS comb resonator

Closed-loop control has been successfully applied to a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) lateral comb resonator device in real-time to perform impulse disturbance damping and sinusoidal position control, enabled by the use of a through-wafer optical microprobe to obtain position feedback. This result leverages the application of lifetime, in-situ control of MEMS in order to provide quality assurance of microsystems in safety critical applications. A position feedback signal produced by a through-wafer optical microprobe has been used for comb resonator system model identification by two independent methods to accurately determine the effective mass, damping, and spring constant values of the device. After accurate determination of system parameters, closed-loop impulse disturbance damping and proportional-integral-differential (PID) translational control were applied. Closed-loop control results presented indicate controllability of such microstructures and response times on the order of the natural frequency of the device.