A bioreactor system for the nitrogen loop in a Controlled Ecological Life Support System.

As space missions become longer in duration, the need to recycle waste into useful compounds rises dramatically. This problem can be addressed by the development of Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems (CELSS) (i.e., Engineered Closed/Controlled Eco-Systems (ECCES)), consisting of human and plant modules. One of the waste streams leaving the human module is urine. In addition to the reclamation of water from urine, recovery of the nitrogen is important because it is an essential nutrient for the plant module. A 3-step biological process for the recycling of nitrogenous waste (urea) is proposed. A packed-bed bioreactor system for this purpose was modeled, and the issues of reaction step segregation, reactor type and volume, support particle size, and pressure drop were addressed. Based on minimization of volume, a bioreactor system consisting of a plug flow immobilized urease reactor, a completely mixed flow immobilized cell reactor to convert ammonia to nitrite, and a plug flow immobilized cell reactor to produce nitrate from nitrite is recommended. It is apparent that this 3-step bioprocess meets the requirements for space applications.     

GPS based onboard and onground orbit operations for small satellites

In extension to common applications such as groundtrack displays and antenna steering, the SGP4 orbit model is proposed for operational orbit determination in small satellite missions. SGP4 is an analytical orbit model for Low-Earth orbiting satellites that is widely used for the propagation of NORAD twoline elements. Twoline elements may hence be generated completely independent of NORAD. Their use as exclusive source of orbital information simplifies the operations concept and reduces mission costs through the extensive use of existing low-cost mission support software. Due to small computer resource requirements of 8–10kByte, the SGP4 model may also be applied for onboard orbit computations making use of e.g. a 80186 processor, thus ensuring full compatibility of ground-based and onboard operations. The proposed approach is particularly suited in combination with a space-borne GPS receiver, were the C/A-code navigation solutions are treated as measurements that are adjusted in a least-squares sense using the SGP4 model. As consequence, inherent drawbacks of the pure navigation solutions such as data gaps and scatter as well as limited velocity accuracy are avoided, while the operational navigation activities are kept at a minimum. The feasibility of the concept is illustrated based on real GPS navigation data from the TOPEX/Poseidon and the MIR space station with an inherent data quality of 50–100 m. It is shown that 3 hours of data within a 4 day period are sufficient to keep the position error within 4 km, that is considered sufficient for most applications.     

Possible mechanisms of plant cell wall changes at microgravity.

Space and clinostatic experiments revealed that changes of plant cell wall structure and its function depend on type of tissue and duration of influence. It was shown that clinostat conditions reproduce the part of weightlessness biological effects. It is established that various responses of wall structural-metabolic organization occur at microgravity: changes of cell walls ultrastructure and organelles structure; decrease of synthesis of primary plant cell wall; rearrangements of polysaccharides content. It is shown that mechanisms of plant cell wall changes at microgravity are connected with decrease of cellulose crystallization, activation of pectolytic enzymes and rearrangement of calcium balance of apoplast and cytoplasm.     

Injuries to plants from controlled environment contaminants.

The use of controlled environments is subject to problems from contaminants emitted from materials of the system and from plants. Many contaminants are difficult to identify because injurious dosages are very low, there is a lack of information on what compounds injure plants, because species and cultivars differ greatly in their sensitivity to injury and injury symptoms often are not distinctive. Plastics have been shown to emit many different volatile compounds. The compound, di-butyl phthalate, contained in certain flexible plastics, has been shown to be very toxic to plants. Other injuries have been produced by caulking compounds and bonded screening. Paints have been shown to release xylene that is toxic to plants. Steam for humidification can cause problems because of hydroxylamines and other compounds added to steam used for heating to control fungal growth in return lines. Mercury, from broken thermometers is a particular problem in growth chambers because small quantities can collect in cracks and slowly volatilize to slow growth of plants. Plants themselves release large quantities of volatile hydrocarbons, with ethylene being the commonly recognized chemical that can be damaging when allowed to accumulate. People release large quantities of carbon dioxide which can cause variations in the rate of growth of plants. Contaminant problems can be controlled through filtering of the air or ventilation with make-up air, however the potential for problems is always present and careful testing should be undertaken with the particular species and cultivars being grown insure that there are no toxic agents altering growth in each particular controlled environment being utilized.     

Use of combined light flash and plasma measurements to study hypervelocity impact processes

We present new measurements concerning generation of light flash during hypervelocity impacts. We use iron particles (10⁻¹³ to 10⁻¹⁷ kg) with velocities over the range 1 to 42 km/s impacting semi-infinite targets (aluminium and molybdenum). The main results of previous work in the field are found to be reproduced with some slight deviations. For iron projectiles with given mass and velocity the energy of the flash (normalized to mass) is proportional to velocity to the power of 3.5 for aluminium targets and 3.9 for molybdenum targets. The duration of the flash is of order 1 microsecond. Simultaneous measurements of the generation of impact plasma do not change this. The onset of plasma generation of the bulk target material does not affect the total light flash energy. We discuss the duration of the flash compared to a simple calculation of temperature in the target and plasma vs time.     

Nanotechnology-based molecular test equipment (MTE)

This paper describes original research efforts in the design, simulation, and development of nanotechnology-based molecular test equipment (MTE). This is a research effort for testing printed circuit boards independent of traditional automatic test equipment (ATE) through the fabrication of MTE within integrated circuits (ICs). The MTE is embedded within the IC substrate and encapsulated within nanoprobes that connect between the surface and the substrate of the IC at various functional areas. A process is followed whereby IC device simulation is performed to assess the electrical, chemical, and structural properties of integrated and adjacent substrate devices. Through this approach the nominal and failed device performance parameters of interest to substrate-based MTE are found. Discussion of the development and application of MTE within IC architectures is provided, including such topics as the effect of substrate composition on the design and realization of MTE, interfaces between MTE and IC devices, and reporting of MTE results to the IC surface and technician. Potential application areas within different device functions will also be identified. A chemical structure diagram is also provided to illustrate the implementation of MTE using discrete device configurations with MTE-augmented logic     

Molecular alterations in tumorigenic human bronchial and breast epithelial cells induced by high LET radiation.

Carcinogenesis is a multi-stage process with sequence of genetic events governing the phenotypic expression of a series of transformation steps leading to the development of metastatic cancer. In the present study, immortalized human bronchial (BEP2D) and breast (MCF-10F) cells were irradiated with graded doses of either 150 keV/micrometer alpha particles or 1 GeV/nucleon 56Fe ions. Transformed cells developed through a series of successive steps before becoming tumorigenic in nude mice. Cell fusion studies indicated that radiation-induced tumorigenic phenotype in BEP2D cells could be completely suppressed by fusion with non-tumorigenic BEP2D cells. The differential expressions of known genes between tumorigenic bronchial and breast cells induced by alpha particles and their respective control cultures were compared using cDNA expression array. Among the 11 genes identified to be differentially expressed in BEP2D cells, three (DCC, DNA-PK and p21(CIP1)) were shown to be consistently down-regulated by 2 to 4 fold in all the 5 tumor cell lines examined. In contrast, their expressions in the fusion cell lines were comparable to control BEP2D cells. Similarly, expression levels of a series of genes were found to be altered in a step-wise manner among tumorigenic MCF-10F cells. The results are highly suggestive that functional alterations of these genes may be causally related to the carcinogenic process.     

Aeolian Processes and their Effects on Understanding the Chronology of Mars

Aeolian (wind) processes can transport particles over large distances on Mars, leading to the modification or removal of surface features, formation of new landforms, and mantling or burial of surfaces. Erosion of mantling deposits by wind deflation can exhume older surfaces. These processes and their effects on the surface must be taken into account in using impact crater statistics to derive chronologies on Mars. In addition, mapping the locations, relative ages, and orientations of aeolian features can provide insight into Martian weather, climate, and climate history.     

Aiming at a 1-cm Orbit for Low Earth Orbiters: Reduced-Dynamic and Kinematic Precise Orbit Determination

The computation of high-accuracy orbits is a prerequisite for the success of Low Earth Orbiter (LEO) missions such as CHAMP, GRACE and GOCE. The mission objectives of these satellites cannot be reached without computing orbits with an accuracy at the few cm level. Such a level of accuracy might be achieved with the techniques of reduced-dynamic and kinematic precise orbit determination (POD) assuming continuous Satellite-to-Satellite Tracking (SST) by the Global Positioning System (GPS). Both techniques have reached a high level of maturity and have been successfully applied to missions in the past, for example to TOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P), leading to (sub-)decimeter orbit accuracy. New LEO gravity missions are (to be) equipped with advanced GPS receivers promising to provide very high quality SST observations thereby opening the possibility for computing cm-level accuracy orbits. The computation of orbits at this accuracy level does not only require high-quality GPS receivers, but also advanced and demanding observation preprocessing and correction algorithms. Moreover, sophisticated parameter estimation schemes need to be adapted and extended to allow the computation of such orbits. Finally, reliable methods need to be employed for assessing the orbit quality and providing feedback to the different processing steps in the orbit computation process. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Coarse attitude determination from Earth albedo measurements

Attitude estimation algorithms for the Thrusted Vector Mission which determine attitude based on Sun sensor and very coarse albedo sensor measurements are presented. On the basis of these measurements, it has been demonstrated by comparison with more accurate gyro-based attitude that it is possible to estimate three-axis attitude with an average error per axis of 11 deg. Most of this error is about the Sun direction. Both deterministic quick-look and optimal estimates are examined