A multi-disciplinary plan for easier access, management, and analysis of science data

NASA’s COST LESS Team is pursuing strategies to reduce the cost and complexity of planning and executing space missions. The team’s technical goal is to reverse the trend of constructing unique solutions for similar problems. To this end, the team is exploring ways to represent mission functionality in terms of building blocks and is discovering approaches that could accommodate the same building blocks for seemingly disparate activities, such as organizing processed telemetry data, controlling onboard experiments, searching science archives, reducing and presenting information to science users, and supporting educational outreach. Reusable object technology (UOT), a research undertaking by the authors, is showing promise in recognizing similarities in functions which were previously viewed as unique because they appeared in different programs or mission phases. Since UOT is aimed at being implementation independent (i.e. the function performed could be accomplished manually, by an automated process, by a specialized instrument, etc.), no premature judgment for automation or autonomy need be made. In this paper, the authors attempt to strike a balance between theory and reality as they describe UOT, including its beginnings, its underpinning, its utility, and its potential for achieving substantive reductions in cost and complexity for the Agency’s space programs. The authors discuss their collaboration with the Center for EUV Astrophysics, University of California, Berkeley to reduce the cost and complexity of science investigations. Their multi-disciplinary plan incorporates both UOT and a complementary technology introduced in this paper, called interactive archives.     

Giant Planet Ionospheres and Thermospheres: The Importance of Ion-Neutral Coupling

Planetary upper atmospheres-coexisting thermospheres and ionospheres-form an important boundary between the planet itself and interplanetary space. The solar wind and radiation from the Sun may react with the upper atmosphere directly, as in the case of Venus. If the planet has a magnetic field, however, such interactions are mediated by the magnetosphere, as in the case of the Earth. All of the Solar System’s giant planets have magnetic fields of various strengths, and interactions with their space environments are thus mediated by their respective magnetospheres. This article concentrates on the consequences of magnetosphere-atmosphere interactions for the physical conditions of the thermosphere and ionosphere. In particular, we wish to highlight important new considerations concerning the energy balance in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter and Saturn, and the role that coupling between the ionosphere and thermosphere may play in establishing and regulating energy flows and temperatures there. This article also compares the auroral activity of Earth, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. The Earth’s behaviour is controlled, externally, by the solar wind. But Jupiter’s is determined by the co-rotation or otherwise of the equatorial plasmasheet, which is internal to the planet’s magnetosphere. Despite being rapid rotators, like Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus appear to have auroral emissions that are mainly under solar (wind) control. For Jupiter and Saturn, it is shown that Joule heating and “frictional” effects, due to ion-neutral coupling can produce large amounts of energy that may account for their high exospheric temperatures.     

UAVSAR: New NASA Airborne SAR System for Research

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is currently building a reconfigurable, polarimetric L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), specifically designed to acquire airborne repeat track SAR data for differential interferometric measurements. Differential interferometry can provide key deformation measurements, important for studies of earthquakes, volcanoes, and other dynamically changing phenomena. Using precision real-time GPS and a sensor controlled flight management system, the system will be able to fly pre-defined paths with great precision. The expected performance of the flight control system will constrain the flight path to be within a 10 m diameter tube about the desired flight track. The radar will be designed to be operable on a Unpiloted Arial Vehicle (UAV) but will initially be demonstrated on a NASA Gulfstream III. The radar will be fully polarimetric, with a range bandwidth of 80 MHz (2 m range resolution), and will support a 16 km range swath. The antenna will be electronically steered along track to assure that the antenna beam can be directed independently, regardless of the wind direction and speed. Other features supported by the antenna include elevation monopulse and pulse-to-pulse re-steering capabilities that will enable some novel modes of operation. The system will nominally operate at 45,000 feet (13,800 m). The program began as an Instrument Incubator Project (IIP) funded by NASA Earth Science and Technology Office (ESTO).     

Mars: A contamination potential?

Three regions on Mars, Solis Lacus, Noachis-Hellespontus, and the Syrtis Major border areas, would appear to have generally less hostile environments than at the Viking lander sites. Significant soil moisture may extend to within ～ 1 cm of the surface. Water vapor pressures within the pore spaces may be near saturation, and brines may be physically segregated from pockets of relatively pure H₂O. Temperatures reach above 0° C during southern spring and summer, with peak temperatures reaching +22°. These regions should contain fewer oxidants, and primary synthesis of organics may occur. The potential for contamination of these sites by microbes transported from existing spacecraft should be assessed. The adequacy of proposed new planetary protection procedures for possible future United States Mars Surface Sample Return missions should also be assessed in light of these findings.     

Information systems requirements analysis and design: a balancedapproach

Over the last decade information engineering has become the methodology of choice for developing information systems. There are as many definitions of information engineering as there are practitioners of the techniques. This paper addresses information engineering from a practical perspective; it discusses how information engineering techniques can be applied to the real-life problem of identifying system requirements and satisfying those requirements with a computer-based information system. The paper also shows that information engineering, rather than being a new methodology, is made up of components of existing methodologies     

On-Board Image Compression for the RAE Lunar Mission

The requirements, design, implementation, and flight performance of an on-board image compression system for the lunar orbiting Radio Astronomy Explorer-2 (RAE-2) spacecraft are described. The image to be compressed is a panoramic camera view of the long radio astronomy antenna booms used for gravity-gradient stabilization of the spacecraft. A compression ratio of 32 to 1 is obtained by a combination of scan line skipping and adaptive run-length coding. The compressed imagery data are convolutionally encoded for error protection. This image compression system occupies about 1000 cm2 and consumes 0.4 W.     

Ion dynamics in the Venus ionosphere

Dynamics play an important role in defining the characteristics of the Venus ionosphere. The absence of a significant internal magnetic field at Venus allows the ionization to respond freely to gradients in the plasma pressure. The primary response to a gradient in plasma pressure is the nightward flow of the ionization away from a photoionization source on the dayside. The flow is approximately symmetric about the Sun-Venus axis and provides the source of O⁺ that maintains the nightside ionosphere during solar maximum. Modelling efforts have generally been successful in describing the average nightward ion velocity. Asymmetric and temporally-variable flow is measured, but is not well described by the models. Departures from axially-symmetric flow described in this paper include ionospheric superrotation at low altitudes and an enhanced flow at high altitude at the dawn terminator. Variability that is the result of changes in the ionopause height induced by changes in solar wind dynamic pressure is especially strong on the nightside. Ion flow to the nightside is also reduced during solar minimum because of a depressed ionopause.     

Cytogenetic effects of energetic ions with shielding

In order to understand the effects of shielding on the induction of biological damages by charged particles, we conducted experiments with accelerated protons (250 MeV) and iron particles (1 GeV/u). Human lymphocytes in vitro were exposed to particle beams through polyethylene with various thickness, and chromosomal aberrations were determined using FISH technique. Dose response curves for chromosome aberrations were obtained and compared for various particle types. Experimental results indicated that for a given absorbed dose at the cell, the effectiveness of protons and iron particles in the induction of chromosomal aberrations was not significantly altered by polyethylene with thickness up to 30-cm and 15-cm respectively. Comparing with gamma rays, charged particles were very effective in producing complex chromosomal damages, which may be an important mechanism in alterating functions in nondividing tissues, such as nervous systems.     

Adaptive Resource Allocation in a Spatial Spectral Processor

A method for achieving an optimal allocation of fixed computational resources in a spatial/spectral filtering system is developed. Specifically, clock cycles per unit time for a given processor are to be optimally allocated. The system is a cascade of three subsystems: an adaptive beamformer, a bandpass filter, and a spectral whitener. Each subsystem has adjustable parameters which are related to required arithmetic operations. A gradient projection algorithm is used to find a best allocation according to specified criteria. Two simulation examples are presented to show how the algorithm operates and to indicate the kind of improvement that is possible in a system design.