Gravitation and celestial mechanics investigations with Galileo

The gravitation and celestial mechanics investigations during the cruise phase and Orbiter phase of the Galileo mission depend on Doppler and ranging measurements generated by the Deep Space Network (DSN) at its three spacecraft tracking sites in California, Australia, and Spain. Other investigations which also rely on DSN data, and which like ours fall under the general discipline of spacecraft radio science, are described in a companion paper by Howard et al. (1992). We group our investigations into four broad categories as follows: (1) the determination of the gravity fields of Jupiter and its four major satellites during the orbital tour, (2) a search for gravitational radiation as evidenced by perturbations to the coherent Doppler link between the spacecraft and Earth, (3) the mathematical modeling, and by implication tests, of general relativistic effects on the Doppler and ranging data during both cruise and orbiter phases, and (4) an improvement in the ephemeris of Jupiter by means of spacecraft ranging during the Orbiter phase. The gravity fields are accessible because of their effects on the spacecraft motion, determined primarily from the Doppler data. For the Galilean satellites we will determine second degree and order gravity harmonics that will yield new information on the central condensation and likely composition of material within these giant satellites (Hubbard and Anderson, 1978). The search for gravitational radiation is being conducted in cruise for periods of 40 days centered around solar opposition. During these times the radio link is least affected by scintillations introduced by solar plasma. Our sensitivity to the amplitude of sinusoidal signals approaches 10^-15 in a band of gravitational frequencies between 10^-4 and 10^-3 Hz, by far the best sensitivity obtained in this band to date. In addition to the primary objectives of our investigations, we discuss two secondary objectives: the determination of a range fix on Venus during the flyby on 10 February, 1990, and the determination of the Earth's mass (GM) from the two Earth gravity assists, EGA1 in December 1990 and EGA2 in December 1992.     

Electric Field Detection and Ranging of Aircraft

The electric field transported by charged aircraft during free flight can be observed quantitatively in distances of up to some 100 m. A system of three plane sensors arranged in the corners of a triangle or the Earth surface is described, by which the flight path of aircraft is detected in the range of 40 to 500 m with velocities of approximately 50 m/s. The theory and typical experimental results are discussed.     

The importance of charged aerosols in the polar mesosphere in connection with Noctilucent Clouds and Polar Mesosphere Summer Echoes

A number of campaigns have been conducted in order to study Polar Mesosphere Summer Echos (PMSE) and Noctilucent Clouds (NLC) in the period 1991–1994. Several sounding rockets have been launched through these layers with measurements being performed on upleg as well as downleg. These include measurements of positive ions and electrons in both ram and wake positions, as well as measurements of charged aerosols in ram on upleg. In this paper we will review these measurements and make a preliminary classification of the data based upon the presence of PMSE and/or NLC. One of the mechanisms responsible for PMSE is the presence of neutral air turbulence in combination with a high Schmidt number. We will briefly discuss this type of echo using in situ rocket data. Differences and similarities of PMSE and NLC as observed both in the Arctic and the Antarctic will be discussed. Observations show that especially PMSE are much more frequent in the Arctic. This may be due to a difference in the water vapour content or the temperature at mesopause heights. Lack of data in the Antarctic makes it difficult to decide which of these two factors are the most important. More measurements, especially co-ordinated in situ and ground-based lidar and radar measurements, are needed to discuss the Arctic and Antarctic similarities and differences in further detail.     

A debris image tracking using optical flow algorithm

This study proposes a motion detection and object tracking technique for GEO debris in a sequence of images. A couple of techniques (called the “stacking method” and “line-identifying technique”) were recently proposed to address the same problem. Although these techniques are effective at detecting the debris position and motion in the image sequences, there are some issues concerned with computational load and assumed debris motion. This study derives a method to estimate motion vectors of objects in image sequence and finally detect the debris locations by using a computer vision technique called an optical flow algorithm. The new method detects these parameters in low computational time in a serial manner, which implies that it has an advantage to track not only linear but also nonlinear motion of GEO debris more easily than the previous methods. The feasibility of the proposed methods is validated using real and synthesized image sequences which contain some typical debris motions.     

Adaptive Forward Error Control for Digital Satellite Systems

Two hybrid schemes of time-frequency resource sharing to increase the rain margin of Ku-and Ka-band satellite systems are proposed. Scheme 1 requires sharing a small pool of bandwidth for adaptive forward error control coding, sharing a small pool of time frame for rate reduction, and sharing a portion of low frequency time-division multiple access (TDMA) back-up frame for downlink transmission to the rain affected stations. Scheme 2 utilizes variable rate modulation and forward error correction, shares a small pool of time frame for rate reduction, and shares a portion of low frequency TDMA back-up frame. Effective usable capacities of the system using these schemes are calculated. Distribution of resources in order to maximize the effective usable capacity is also analyzed. The results obtained are compared with other adaptive schemes. Preliminary analysis shows that the utilized capacity of scheme 1 exceeds 99 percent of the effective usable capacity possible if it never rains for an outage of 0.05 percent and fade margin of 2.5 dB. For scheme 2 similar performance is achievable at a fade margin of 1.5 dB. For higher outage objectives the loss of effective utilized capacity is higher for scheme 2.     

The Magnetic Electron Ion Spectrometer (MagEIS) Instruments Aboard the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) Spacecraft

This paper describes the Magnetic Electron Ion Spectrometer (MagEIS) instruments aboard the RBSP spacecraft from an instrumentation and engineering point of view. There are four magnetic spectrometers aboard each of the two spacecraft, one low-energy unit (20–240 keV), two medium-energy units (80–1200 keV), and a high-energy unit (800–4800 keV). The high unit also contains a proton telescope (55 keV–20 MeV). The magnetic spectrometers focus electrons within a selected energy pass band upon a focal plane of several silicon detectors where pulse-height analysis is used to determine if the energy of the incident electron is appropriate for the electron momentum selected by the magnet. Thus each event is a two-parameter analysis, an approach leading to a greatly reduced background. The physics of these instruments are described in detail followed by the engineering implementation. The data outputs are described, and examples of the calibration results and early flight data presented.