The Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) on the New Horizons Mission

The Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) comprises the hardware and accompanying science investigation on the New Horizons spacecraft to measure pick-up ions from Pluto’s outgassing atmosphere. To the extent that Pluto retains its characteristics similar to those of a “heavy comet” as detected in stellar occultations since the early 1980s, these measurements will characterize the neutral atmosphere of Pluto while providing a consistency check on the atmospheric escape rate at the encounter epoch with that deduced from the atmospheric structure at lower altitudes by the ALICE, REX, and SWAP experiments on New Horizons. In addition, PEPSSI will characterize any extended ionosphere and solar wind interaction while also characterizing the energetic particle environment of Pluto, Charon, and their associated system. First proposed for development for the Pluto Express mission in September 1993, what became the PEPSSI instrument went through a number of development stages to meet the requirements of such an instrument for a mission to Pluto while minimizing the required spacecraft resources. The PEPSSI instrument provides for measurements of ions (with compositional information) and electrons from 10 s of keV to ～1 MeV in a 160°×12° fan-shaped beam in six sectors for 1.5 kg and ～2.5 W.     

Resolving electrons from protons in ATIC

The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) experiment is designed for high energy cosmic ray ion detection. The possibility to identify high energy primary cosmic ray electrons in the presence of the ‘background’ of cosmic ray protons has been studied by simulating nuclear-electromagnetic cascade showers using the FLUKA Monte Carlo simulation code. The ATIC design, consisting of a graphite target and an energy detection device, a totally active calorimeter built up of 2.5 cm × 2.5 cm × 25.0 cm BGO scintillator bars, gives sufficient information to distinguish electrons from protons. While identifying about 80% of electrons as such, only about 2 in 10,000 protons (@ 150 GeV) will mimic electrons. In September of 1999 ATIC was exposed to high-energy electron and proton beams at the CERN H2 beam line, and this data confirmed the electron detection capabilities of ATIC. From 2000-12-28 to 2001-01-13 ATIC was flown as a long duration balloon test flight from McMurdo, Antarctica, recording over 360 h of data and allowing electron separation to be confirmed in the flight data. In addition, ATIC electron detection capabilities can be checked by atmospheric gamma-ray observations.     

Observations of ionospheric irregularities and its correspondence with sporadic e occurrence over South Korea and Japan

This study analyzed the occurrence of ionospheric irregularities over South Korea and Japan (mid-latitudes) during the years 2010–2015. The irregularities were quantified using the rate of change of total electron content (TEC) index (ROTI), which detects irregularities with scale sizes in the range of 400 m–2.5 km. The ROTI threshold for an ionospheric irregularity to have occurred was set as 0.1 TECU/min. Results showed that ionospheric irregularities mostly occur during night-time and around local noon-time in the seasons of spring and summer. In addition, the percentage of ionospheric irregularities had a high positive correlation with solar flux (F10.7) (r > 0.72). For the first time, we showed good correspondence between ionospheric irregularities measured by the ROTI index and sporadic E (Es). The median ROTI associated with ionospheric irregularities over a South Korea station (DAEJ) and a Japan station (KGNI) were 0.131 and 0.125 TECU/min, respectively. However, in severe cases of ionospheric irregularities, the ROTI values over DAEJ (KGNI) can reach 0.246 (0.217) and 0.314 (0.339) TECU/min during day and night, respectively. These critical ROTI values can be important in interpreting and monitoring ionospheric irregularity occurrence over South Korea and Japan.     

Hardware-In-the-Loop Simulations of spacecraft attitude synchronization using the State-Dependent Riccati Equation technique

A nonlinear control technique pertaining to attitude synchronization problems is presented for formation flying spacecraft by utilizing the State-Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE) technique. An attitude controller consisting of relative control and absolute control is designed using a reaction wheel assembly for regulator and tracking problems. To achieve effective relative control, the selective state-dependent connectivity is also adopted. The global asymptotic stability of the controller is confirmed using the Lyapunov theorem and is verified by Monte-Carlo simulations. An air-bearing-based Hardware-In-the-Loop Simulator (HILS) is also developed to validate the proposed control laws in real-time environments. The SDRE controller is discretized for implementation of a real-time processor in the HILS. The pointing errors are about 0.2° in the numerical simulations and about 1° in the HILS simulations, and experimental simulations confirm the effectiveness of the control algorithm for attitude synchronization in a spacecraft formation flying mission. Consequently, experiments using the HILS in a real-time environment can appropriately perform spacecraft attitude synchronization algorithms for formation flying spacecraft.     

Design of tracking mount and controller for mobile satellite laser ranging system

In this study, we have proposed and implemented a design for the tracking mount and controller of the ARGO-M (Accurate Ranging system for Geodetic Observation - Mobile) which is a mobile satellite laser ranging (SLR) system developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) and Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM). The tracking mount comprises a few core components such as bearings, driving motors and encoders. These components were selected as per the technical specifications for the tracking mount of the ARGO-M. A three-dimensional model of the tracking mount was designed. The frequency analysis of the model predicted that the first natural frequency of the designed tracking mount was high enough. The tracking controller is simulated using MATLAB/xPC Target to achieve the required pointing and tracking accuracy. In order to evaluate the system repeatability and tracking accuracy of the tracking mount, a prototype of the ARGO-M was fabricated, and repeatability tests were carried out using a laser interferometer. Tracking tests were conducted using the trajectories of low earth orbit (LEO) and high earth orbit (HEO) satellites. Based on the test results, it was confirmed that the prototype of the tracking mount and controller of the ARGO-M could achieve the required repeatability along with a tracking accuracy of less than 1 arcsec.     

Procedure and methodologies for managing the risk of space object reentry

This paper proposes a procedure for managing the risk of reentering space objects and risk assessment methodologies used for the process. The proposed procedure comprises three phases encompassing the whole reentry stages of space objects. Mathematical models for assessing the impact risk of the reentering space objects by utilizing the information available during different risk management phases and the recommended risk analysis results for public communication are presented. The concept of the conditional casualty expectation is proposed as the metric representing the reentry risk and the method to compute its profile is introduced. A case study on the risk management procedure with the dataset on an actual reentry event is conducted to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed procedure.     

Changes in sea-level pressure over South Korea associated with high-speed solar wind events

We explore a possibility that the daily sea-level pressure (SLP) over South Korea responds to the high-speed solar wind event. This is of interest in two aspects: first, if there is a statistical association this can be another piece of evidence showing that various meteorological observables indeed respond to variations in the interplanetary environment. Second, this can be a very crucial observational constraint since most models proposed so far are expected to preferentially work in higher latitude regions than the low latitude region studied here. We have examined daily solar wind speed V, daily SLP difference ΔSLP, and daily log(BV²) using the superposed epoch analysis in which the key date is set such that the daily solar wind speed exceeds 800 km s⁻¹. We find that the daily ΔSLP averaged out of 12 events reaches its peak at day +1 and gradually decreases back to its normal level. The amount of positive deviation of ΔSLP is +2.5 hPa. The duration of deviation is a few days. We also find that ΔSLP is well correlated with both the speed of solar wind and log(BV²). The obtained linear correlation coefficients and chance probabilities with one-day lag for two cases are r ? 0.81 with P > 99.9%, and r ? 0.84 with P > 99.9%, respectively. We conclude by briefly discussing future direction to pursue.     

Development of a scheduling algorithm and GUI for autonomous satellite missions

In this paper, a scheduling optimization algorithm is developed and verified for autonomous satellite mission operations. As satellite control and operational techniques continue to develop, satellite missions become more complicated and the overall quantity of tasks within the missions also increases. These changes require more specific consideration and a huge amount of computational resources, for scheduling the satellite missions. In addition, there is a certain level of repetition in satellite mission scheduling activities, and hence it is highly recommended that the operation manager carefully considers and builds some appropriate strategy for performing the operations autonomously. A good strategy to adopt is to develop scheduling optimization algorithms, because it is difficult for humans to consider the many mission parameters and constraints simultaneously. In this paper, a new genetic algorithm is applied to simulations of an actual satellite mission scheduling problem, and an appropriate GUI design is considered for an autonomous satellite mission operation. It is expected that the scheduling optimization algorithm and the GUI can improve the overall efficiency in practical satellite mission operations.     

Korea''s space development programme: Policy and law

Korea now has a rapidly expanding space programme with exploration aspirations. The government is giving priority to the aerospace industry and, to put it on a better footing, recently enacted a New Space Exploitation Promotion Act. The early history and current and future development of Korea's space activities are briefly described in advance of a comprehensive presentation of the contents of the Act, including launch licensing, liability, registration of space objects, use of satellite information, astronaut rescue, third party liability insurance and establishment of institutions and plans to assist the Korean space effort. A call is made for Asian countries to unite and further their space development through a regional space agency.     

Autonomous airborne navigation in unknown terrain environments

We address the issue of autonomous navigation, that is, the ability for a navigation system to provide information about the states of a vehicle without the need for a priori infrastructure such as GPS, beacons, or a map. The algorithm is known as simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) and it is a terrain aided navigation system (TANS) which has the capability for online map building, and simultaneously utilising the generated map to bound the errors in the navigation solution. Since the algorithm does not require any a priori terrain information or initial knowledge of the vehicle location, it presents a powerful navigation augmentation system or more importantly, it can be implemented as an independent navigation system. Results are first provided using computer simulation which analyses the effect of the spatial density of landmarks as well as the quality of observation and inertial navigation data, and then finally the real time implementation of the algorithm on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).