The Magnetospheric Multiscale Magnetometers

The success of the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission depends on the accurate measurement of the magnetic field on all four spacecraft. To ensure this success, two independently designed and built fluxgate magnetometers were developed, avoiding single-point failures. The magnetometers were dubbed the digital fluxgate (DFG), which uses an ASIC implementation and was supplied by the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the analogue magnetometer (AFG) with a more traditional circuit board design supplied by the University of California, Los Angeles. A stringent magnetic cleanliness program was executed under the supervision of the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. To achieve mission objectives, the calibration determined on the ground will be refined in space to ensure all eight magnetometers are precisely inter-calibrated. Near real-time data plays a key role in the transmission of high-resolution observations stored on board so rapid processing of the low-resolution data is required. This article describes these instruments, the magnetic cleanliness program, and the instrument pre-launch calibrations, the planned in-flight calibration program, and the information flow that provides the data on the rapid time scale needed for mission success.     

Methods for investigating the unmanned aerial vehicle electric actuator performance in aeroelasticity tasks

Theoretical and experimental methods of investigating the performance of an electric actuator of maneuverable unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is considered in order to solve the aeroelasticity tasks. Models of the stability analysis for the rudder–actuator system as well as the examples of numerical and experimental studies of this system performance are given.     

Statistical analysis of stretch shaping process of biconvex skin

The results of shaping process were obtained by the process scheme of serial stretching for biconvex skin of workpieces using the ANSYS/LS-DYNA software. The analysis is based on different flow material characteristics during plastic deformation at solid friction. A statistical analysis of the calculation results for disturbing factors assessment is carried out.     

SAMI3_ICON: Model of the Ionosphere/Plasmasphere System

Space Science Reviews - The NRL ionosphere/plasmasphere model SAMI3 has been modified to support the NASA ICON mission. Specifically, SAMI3_ICON has been modified to import the thermospheric...