The Plasma and Suprathermal Ion Composition (PLASTIC) Investigation on the STEREO Observatories

The Plasma and Suprathermal Ion Composition (PLASTIC) investigation provides the in situ solar wind and low energy heliospheric ion measurements for the NASA Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory Mission, which consists of two spacecraft (STEREO-A, STEREO-B). PLASTIC-A and PLASTIC-B are identical. Each PLASTIC is a time-of-flight/energy mass spectrometer designed to determine the elemental composition, ionic charge states, and bulk flow parameters of major solar wind ions in the mass range from hydrogen to iron. PLASTIC has nearly complete angular coverage in the ecliptic plane and an energy range from ～0.3 to 80 keV/e, from which the distribution functions of suprathermal ions, including those ions created in pick-up and local shock acceleration processes, are also provided.     

Polish radar technology

Polish radar research and development since 1953 is reviewed, covering the development and production of surveillance radars, height finders, tracking radars, air traffic control (ATC) radars and systems, and marine and Doppler radars. Some current work, including an L-band ATC radar for enroute control, a weather channel for primary surveillance radar, signal detection in non-Gaussian clutter, adaptive MTI filters and postdetection filtering, and a basic approach to radar polarimetry, is examined.<>     

Influence of graviceptives cues at different level of visual information processing: the effect of prolonged weightlessness

We evaluated the influence of prolonged weightlessness on the performance of visual tasks in the course of the Russian-French missions ANTARES, Post-ANTARES and ALTAIR aboard the MIR station. Eight cosmonauts were subjects in two experiments executed pre-flight, in-flight and post-flight sessions.

In the first experiment, cosmonauts performed a task of symmetry detection in 2-D polygons. The results indicate that this detection is locked in a head retinal reference frame rather than in an environmentally defined one as meridional orientations of symmetry axis (vertical and horizontal) elicited faster response times than oblique ones. However, in weightlessness the saliency of a retinally vertical axis of symmetry is no longer significantly different from an horizontal axis. In the second experiment, cosmonauts performed a mental rotation task in which they judged whether two 3-D objects presented in different orientations were identical. Performance on this task is basically identical in weightlessness and normal gravity.     

Investigations of the Mars Upper Atmosphere with ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter

Space Science Reviews - Time measured by an ideal clock crucially depends on the gravitational potential and velocity of the clock according to general relativity. Technological advances in...     

Potential Effects of Surface Temperature Variations and Disturbances and Thermal Convection on the Mars InSight HP<Superscript>3</Superscript> Heat-Flow Determination

The HP³ instrument on the InSight lander mission will measure subsurface temperatures and thermal conductivities from which heat flow in the upper few meters of the regolith at the landing site will be calculated. The parameter to be determined is steady-state conductive heat flow, but temperatures may have transient perturbations resulting from surface temperature changes and there could be a component of thermal convection associated with heat transport by vertical flow of atmospheric gases over the depth interval of measurement. The experiment is designed so that it should penetrate to a depth below which surface temperature perturbations are smaller than the required measurement precision by the time the measurements are made. However, if the measurements are delayed after landing, and/or the probe does not penetrate to the desired depth, corrections may be necessary for the transient perturbations. Thermal convection is calculated to be negligible, but these calculations are based on unknown physical properties of the Mars regolith. The effects of thermal convection should be apparent at shallow depths where transient thermal perturbations would be observed to deviate from conductive theory. These calculations were required during proposal review and their probability of predicting a successful measurement a prerequisite for mission approval. However, their uncertainties lies in unmeasured physical parameters of the Mars regolith.     

Designing corrections for the trajectory of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Spektr-R</Emphasis> spacecraft in the event of immersions into the Moon’s sphere of influence

The results of updating the parameters of motion of the Spektr-R spacecraft at the end of 2016 have shown that, in January 2018, with a probability close to unity, the condition that a spacecraft stay in the Earth’s shadow is violated; however, in May of the same year, the ballistic life of the spacecraft will be terminated. Thus, in 2017, the question arose of how to design the correction of flight of this spacecraft using its onboard propulsion system. The correction was designed with allowance for the fact that, for the first time since it was launched, the spacecraft in the course of several years, beginning with 2017, repeatedly approaches the Moon, deeply immersing into its sphere of influence. This paper presents the technologically and organizationally convenient, allowable versions of upcoming correction of the Spektr-R spacecraft trajectory and justifies the particular scheme of its implementation.     

Main results and experience obtained on Mir space station and experiment program for Russian segment of ISS

This article presents main scientific and practical results obtained in course of scientific and applied research and experiments on Mir space station. Based on Mir experience, processes of research program formation for the Russian Segment of the ISS are briefly described. The major trends of activities planned in the frames of these programs as well as preliminary results of increment research programs implementation in the ISS' first missions are also presented.     

The effect of small vibrations on Marangoni convection and the free surface of a liquid bridge

The effects of small vibrations on Marangoni convection were investigated experimentally using a liquid bridge of 5 cSt silicone oil with a disk diameter of 7.0 mm, and an aspect ratio close to 0.5. Experiments were performed to determine the critical temperature difference data for no vibration case and with small vibrations applied. The experimental results have shown that the effect of small vibrations on the onset of oscillatory flow is small since the critical temperature difference data for different aspect ratios were not affected by the vibrations. To clarify the surface oscillation phenomena induced by external vibrations, a 3-D numerical simulation model was also developed using a level set algorithm to predict the surface oscillations of isothermal silicone oil bridges. By subjecting the liquid bridge to small vibrations, the surface oscillation characteristics were predicted numerically, and the numerical results compared well with the predictions of an analytical model proposed previously. Furthermore, the effect of small vibrations on the surface vibration amplitude of the liquid bridge is also discussed.     

The Physical Foundation of Forecasting Disturbances in the Geospace From Solar Disk Characteristics

The five main types of antisunward propagating energetic fluxes (particles and emission) may be thought of as well established to date, the effects of which lead to a particilar character of disturbance in the near-terrestrial environment (the Earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere and atmosphere). The strongest global restructuring of the magnetosphere and ionosphere is caused by fluxes of relatively dense n of 1-70 cm-3 at the Earth's orbit) Solar Wind (SW) quasi-neutral, low-energy (E ＜ 10 keV) plasma which cause magnetospheric and ionospheric storms lasting 24 hours or longer. For that reason, main attention is given to their study at the initial stage of research. The physical essence of the method of predicting disturbances in the near-terrestrial space environment, the amplitude of which can be expressed in, for example, the Kp index units, involves:(1) identifying all the most geo-effective SW streams of type, (2) determing their sources on the solar disk,and (3) quantifying the correlations between the characteristics of their solar sources with a maximum value of the Kp-index that is caused by the concerned type of SW stream. Semi-phenomenological relations have been obtained, which relate parameters of type SW stream sources to characteristics of geomagnetic storms:storm commencement, the time at which the storm intensity reaches its maximum values, the storm duration,as well as to the storm amplitude expressed in terms of geomagnetic indeces.