Protection by WR-2721 and WR-151327 against late effects of gamma rays and neutrons.

Two thiophosphoroate compounds WR-2721 and WR-151327 were assessed for their ability to modify the deleterious effects (life shortening and carcinogenesis) of fission-spectrum neutrons (kerma-weighted mean energy of 0.85 MeV) or gamma rays on B6CF1 hybrid mice. Male and female mice, 200 of each sex per experimental group, were irradiated individually at 110 days of age. Radioprotectors (400 mg/kg of WR-2721 or 580 mg/kg of WR-151327) were administered intraperitoneally 30 min prior to irradiation. Neutron doses were 10 cGy or 40 cGy and gamma ray doses were 206 cGy or 417 cGy. Animals were housed five to a cage; cage locations in the holding rooms were randomized by computer. Animals were checked daily and all deceased animals were necropsied. WR-2721 afforded protection against both neutron- and gamma-ray-induced carcinogenesis and subsequent life shortening. Cumulative survival curves for unirradiated mice of either sex were unaffectecd by protectors. WR-2721 protected irradiated groups against life shortening by approximately 10 cGy of neutrons or 100 cGy of gamma rays. WR-151327 was as effective as WR-2721 against neutron irradiation.     

Carrier-wave interference to Loran-C: a statistical evaluation

Loran-C is a pulsed, hyperbolic radio aid for long-range marine, air, and land navigation. The worldwide expansion of Loran-C, especially in Europe, has focused attention on carrier-wave interference to the system. The effects of a multiplicity of carrier-wave interferers (CWIs) on receiver timing measurement accuracy are considered. Both the phase tracking and the cycle-selection performance of receivers are quantified in terms of the probabilities that they will operate correctly within the arbitrarily set error limits. Characteristic functions (CFs) are used to compute these probabilities. Analyses and results are presented for typical situations. The relative sensitivity of the phase tracking and cycle-selection functions to interfering signals are discussed     

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     

A large-scale perspective on ecosystems.

Interactions between ecological elements must be better understood in order to construct an ecological life support system in space. An index was devised to describe the complexity of material cyclings within a given ecosystem. It was then applied to the cyclings of bioelements in various systems of material cyclings including the whole Earth and national economies. The results show interesting characteristics of natural and man-made systems.     

Adaptive Forward Error Control for Digital Satellite Systems

Two hybrid schemes of time-frequency resource sharing to increase the rain margin of Ku-and Ka-band satellite systems are proposed. Scheme 1 requires sharing a small pool of bandwidth for adaptive forward error control coding, sharing a small pool of time frame for rate reduction, and sharing a portion of low frequency time-division multiple access (TDMA) back-up frame for downlink transmission to the rain affected stations. Scheme 2 utilizes variable rate modulation and forward error correction, shares a small pool of time frame for rate reduction, and shares a portion of low frequency TDMA back-up frame. Effective usable capacities of the system using these schemes are calculated. Distribution of resources in order to maximize the effective usable capacity is also analyzed. The results obtained are compared with other adaptive schemes. Preliminary analysis shows that the utilized capacity of scheme 1 exceeds 99 percent of the effective usable capacity possible if it never rains for an outage of 0.05 percent and fade margin of 2.5 dB. For scheme 2 similar performance is achievable at a fade margin of 1.5 dB. For higher outage objectives the loss of effective utilized capacity is higher for scheme 2.     

Design of the TRIO system-on-chip for aerospace

Several design and testing aspects of the TRIO smart sensor data acquisition chip, developed by JHU/APL for NASA spacecraft applications are presented. TRIO includes a 10 bit self-corrected analog-to-digital converter (ADC), 16/32 analog inputs, a front end multiplexer with selectable aquisition time, a current source, memory, serial and parallel bus, and control logic. So far TRIO is used in many missions including Contour, Messenger, Stereo, Pluto, and the generic JPL X2000 spacecraft bus.     

Ginga observations of Seyfert galaxies

We observed twenty-eight Seyfert 2 galaxies with the Japanese X-ray satellite, Ginga, and found Seyfert 2 galaxies, in general, have the X-ray spectral characteristics of obscured Seyfert 1 nuclei. This result agrees with the predictions from Unified Seyfert model proposed by Antonucci and Miller /1/. However, among the observed Seyfert 2 galaxies, there are a few galaxies with no evidence of an obscuration, contrary to the general predictions of the unified model. We note that type 2 AGN will contribute to the Cosmic Diffuse X-ray Background, if the unified Seyfert model can be extended to the far distant AGN such as quasars.     

The SOHO CELIAS/SEM EUV database from SC23 minimum to the present

The SOHO Solar EUV Monitor has been in operation since December 1995 onboard the SOHO spacecraft. This instrument is a highly stable transmission grating solar extreme ultraviolet spectrometer. It has made nearly continuous full disk solar irradiance measurements both within an 8 nm bandpass centered at 30.4 nm and throughout the 0.1 to 50 nm solar flux region since launch. The 30.4 nm flux, the 0.1 to 50 nm flux and the extracted soft X-ray (0.1 to 5 nm) flux are presented and compared with the behavior of solar proxies.     

Scientific Planning and Commanding of the Rosetta Payload

ESA’s Rosetta mission was launched in March 2004 and is on its way to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where it is scheduled to arrive in summer 2014. It comprises a payload of 12 scientific instruments and a Lander. All instruments are provided by Principal Investigators, which are responsible for their operations. As for most ESA science missions, the ground segment of the mission consists of a Mission Operations Centre (MOC) and a Science Operations Centre (SOC). While the MOC is responsible for all spacecraft-related aspects and the final uplink of all command timelines to the spacecraft, the scientific operations of the instruments and the collection of the data and ingestion into the Planetary Science Archive are coordinated by the SOC. This paper focuses on the tasks of the SOC and in particular on the methodology and constraints to convert the scientific goals of the Rosetta mission to operational timelines.