Hydra — A 3-dimensional electron and ion hot plasma instrument for the POLAR spacecraft of the GGS mission

HYDRA is an experimental hot plasma investigation for the POLAR spacecraft of the GGS program. A consortium of institutions has designed a suite of particle analyzers that sample the velocity space of electron and ions between 2 keV/q – 35 keV/q in three dimensions, with a routine time resolution of 0.5 s. Routine coverage of velocity space will be accomplished with an angular homogeneity assumption of 16°, appropriate for subsonic plasmas, but with special 1.5° resolution for electrons with energies between 100 eV and 10 keV along and opposed to the local magnetic field. This instrument produces 4.9 kilobits s^–1 to the telemetry, consumes on average 14 W and requires 18.7 kg for deployment including its internal shielding. The scientific objectives for the polar magnetosphere fall into four broad categories: (1) those to define the ambient kinetic regimes of ions and electrons; (2) those to elucidate the magnetohydrodynamic responses in these regimes; (3) those to assess the particle populations with high time resolution; and (4) those to determine the global topology of the magnetic field. In thefirst group are issues of identifying the origins of particles at high magnetic latitudes, their energization, the altitude dependence of the forces, including parallel electric fields they have traversed. In thesecond group are the physics of the fluid flows, regimes of current, and plasma depletion zones during quiescent and disturbed magnetic conditions. In thethird group is the exploration of the processes that accompany the rapid time variations known to occur in the auroral zone, cusp and entry layers as they affect the flow of mass, momentum and energy in the auroral region. In thefourth class of objectives are studies in conjunction with the SWE measurements of the Strahl in the solar wind that exploit the small gyroradius of thermal electrons to detect those magnetic field lines that penetrate the auroral region that are directly open to interplanetary space where, for example, the Polar Rain is observed.     

Remote sensing of planetary properties and biosignatures on extrasolar terrestrial planets

The major goals of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) and the European Space Agency's Darwin missions are to detect terrestrial-sized extrasolar planets directly and to seek spectroscopic evidence of habitable conditions and life. Here we recommend wavelength ranges and spectral features for these missions. We assess known spectroscopic molecular band features of Earth, Venus, and Mars in the context of putative extrasolar analogs. The preferred wavelength ranges are 7-25 microns in the mid-IR and 0.5 to approximately 1.1 microns in the visible to near-IR. Detection of O2 or its photolytic product O3 merits highest priority. Liquid H2O is not a bioindicator, but it is considered essential to life. Substantial CO2 indicates an atmosphere and oxidation state typical of a terrestrial planet. Abundant CH4 might require a biological source, yet abundant CH4 also can arise from a crust and upper mantle more reduced than that of Earth. The range of characteristics of extrasolar rocky planets might far exceed that of the Solar System. Planetary size and mass are very important indicators of habitability and can be estimated in the mid-IR and potentially also in the visible to near-IR. Additional spectroscopic features merit study, for example, features created by other biosignature compounds in the atmosphere or on the surface and features due to Rayleigh scattering. In summary, we find that both the mid-IR and the visible to near-IR wavelength ranges offer valuable information regarding biosignatures and planetary properties; therefore both merit serious scientific consideration for TPF and Darwin.     

Testing the three-dimensional IRI-SIRMUP-P mapping of the ionosphere for disturbed periods

This paper describes the three-dimensional (3-D) electron density mapping of the ionosphere given as output by the assimilative IRI-SIRMUP-P (ISP) model for three different geomagnetic storms. Results of the 3-D model are shown by comparing the electron density profiles given by the model with the ones measured at two testing ionospheric stations: Roquetes (40.8°N, 0.5°E), Spain, and San Vito (40.6°N, 17.8°E), Italy. The reference ionospheric stations from which the autoscaled foF2 and M(3000)F2 data as well as the real-time vertical electron density profiles are assimilated by the ISP model are those of El Arenosillo (37.1°N, 353.3°E), Spain, Rome (41.8°N, 12.5°E), and Gibilmanna (37.9°N, 14.0°E), Italy. Overall, the representation of the ionosphere made by the ISP model is better than the climatological representation made by only the IRI-URSI and the IRI-CCIR models. However, there are few cases for which the assimilation of the autoscaled data from the reference stations causes either a strong underestimation or a strong overestimation of the real conditions of the ionosphere, which is in these cases better represented by only the IRI-URSI model. This ISP misrepresentation is mainly due to the fact that the reference ionospheric stations covering the region mapped by the model turn out to be few, especially for disturbed periods when the ionosphere is very variable both in time and in space and hence a larger number of stations would be required. The inclusion of new additional reference ionospheric stations could surely smooth out this concern.     

Antibody engineering--a valuable asset in preventing closed environment epidemics

Investigations of Mir, Space Shuttle, Skylab and Apollo missions report extensive colonisation of the spacecraft by bacteria and fungi, which can lead to degradative effects on spacecraft equipment and devastating effects on space-grown crops. More than 80% of terrestrial greenhouse epidemics are due to the fungal genera Phytophthora, Pythium and Fusarium, which have been found in life support system test-beds. The advent of recombinant antibody technologies, including ribosome display and phage display, has made it possible to develop antibodies against virtually any toxin or organism and allows for maturation of antibodies by in vitro molecular evolution. These antibodies may play an important role in an integrated pest management regime for life support systems. Efficacy of existing fungal countermeasures could be increased by chemical linkage to antibodies, which target the site of action of the biocide or trap the pathogen in a biofilter. Novel recombinant antibody-biocide fusions can be expressed in situ by plants or symbiotic microbes to create direct disease resistance.     

The scientific case for renewed human activities on the Moon

It is over 30 years since the last human being stood on the lunar surface and this long hiatus in human exploration has been to the detriment of lunar and planetary science. The primary scientific importance of the Moon lies in the record it preserves of the early evolution of a terrestrial planet, and of the near-Earth cosmic environment in the first billion years or so of Solar System history. This record may not be preserved anywhere else; gaining proper access to it will require a human presence. Moreover, while this will primarily be a task for the geosciences, the astronomical and biological sciences would also benefit from a renewed human presence on the Moon, and especially from the establishment of a permanently occupied scientific outpost.     

The OSIRIS-REx Radio Science Experiment at Bennu

The OSIRIS-REx mission will conduct a Radio Science investigation of the asteroid Bennu with a primary goal of estimating the mass and gravity field of the asteroid. The spacecraft will conduct proximity operations around Bennu for over 1 year, during which time radiometric tracking data, optical landmark tracking images, and altimetry data will be obtained that can be used to make these estimates. Most significantly, the main Radio Science experiment will be a 9-day arc of quiescent operations in a 1-km nominally circular terminator orbit. The pristine data from this arc will allow the Radio Science team to determine the significant components of the gravity field up to the fourth spherical harmonic degree. The Radio Science team will also be responsible for estimating the surface accelerations, surface slopes, constraints on the internal density distribution of Bennu, the rotational state of Bennu to confirm YORP estimates, and the ephemeris of Bennu that incorporates a detailed model of the Yarkovsky effect.     

A Study of the Reflection of Radio Waves from the Plasma Region on the Track behind an Axisymmetric Body Moving in the Earth’s Atmosphere

The results of numerical calculation of the dependences of the electron density, the eigenfrequency and the dielectric plasma permeability on the geometric parameters and the altitude of body motion in the near and far wake behind a thin conical body with a spherical nose blunting have been presented. The electron density maximum has been shown to be located in the region of the neck of the near wake behind the body, which determines the type of this region (supercritical or subcritical). This in turn affects the propagation of radio waves through this plasma region. A comparative analysis was performed for two different bodies with the same ballistic coefficient values. No characteristic distinctions were revealed in the values of electron density or the plasma eigenfrequency in the near and far wake behind these bodies. However, it has been shown that there are differences in the values of the distance from the bottom cross section to the neck of the near wake behind these bodies.     

Online INS/GPS integration with a radial basis function neural network

Most of the present navigation systems rely on Kalman filtering to fuse data from global positioning system (GPS) and the inertial navigation system (INS). In general, INS/GPS integration provides reliable navigation solutions by overcoming each of their shortcomings, including signal blockage for GPS and growth of position errors with time for INS. Present Kalman filtering INS/GPS integration techniques have some inadequacies related to the stochastic error models of inertial sensors, immunity to noise, and observability. This paper aims to introduce a multi-sensor system integration approach for fusing data from INS and GPS utilizing artificial neural networks (ANN). A multi-layer perceptron ANN has been recently suggested to fuse data from INS and differential GPS (DGPS). Although being able to improve the positioning accuracy, the complexity associated with both the architecture of multi-layer perceptron networks and its online training algorithms limit the real-time capabilities of this technique. This article, therefore, suggests the use of an alternative ANN architecture. This architecture is based on radial basis function (RBF) neural networks, which generally have simpler architecture and faster training procedures than multi-layer perceptron networks. The INS and GPS data are first processed using wavelet multi-resolution analysis (WRMA) before being applied to the RBF network. The WMRA is used to compare the INS and GPS position outputs at different resolution levels. The RBF-ANN module is then trained to predict the INS position errors and provide accurate positioning of the moving platform. Field-test results have demonstrated that substantial improvement in INS/GPS positioning accuracy could be obtained by applying the combined WRMA and RBF-ANN modules.     

Recursive mode star identification algorithms

Star identification can be accomplished by several different available algorithms that identify the stars observed by a star tracker. However, efficiency and reliability remain key issues and the availability of new active pixel cameras requires new approaches. Two novel algorithms for recursive mode star identification are presented here. The first approach is derived by the spherical polygon search (SP-search) algorithm, it was used to access all the cataloged stars observed by the sensor field-of-view (FOV) and recursively add/remove candidate cataloged stars according to the predicted image motion induced by camera attitude dynamics. Star identification is then accomplished by a star pattern matching technique which identifies the observed stars in the reference catalog. The second method uses star neighborhood information and a catalog neighborhood pointer matrix to access the star catalog. In the recursive star identification process, and under the assumption of "slow" attitude dynamics, only the stars in the neighborhood of previously identified stars are considered for star identification in the succeeding frames. Numerical tests are performed to validate the absolute and relative efficiency of the proposed methods.