THEMIS Ground-Based Magnetometers

The THEMIS mission includes a comprehensive ground-based measurement network that adds two additional dimensions to the information gained in the night magnetosphere by the five THEMIS spacecraft. This network provides necessary correlative data on the strength and extent of events, enables their onsets to be accurately timed, and provides an educational component in which students have an active participation in the program. This paper describes the magnetometers installed to obtain these ground-based North American magnetic measurements, including the magnetometers installed as part of the educational effort, and the support electronics provided by UCLA for the ground-based observatories. These magnetometers measure the Earth’s magnetic field with high resolution, and with precise timing provided by the Global Positioning System. They represent UCLA’s next generation of low-cost, ground-based magnetometers using an inexpensive personal computer for data collection, storage and distribution. These systems can be used in a stand-alone mode requiring only AC power. If there is Internet connectivity, they can be configured to provide near real-time data over the web. These data are provided at full resolution to the entire scientific community over the web with minimal delay.     

An introduction of mountain-based GPS radio occultation experiments in China

The mountain-based GPS radio occultation is a novel approach to lower atmospheric profiling. The experiments of the mountain-based GPS radio occultation were conducted on the top of Mt. Yaogu (29.38°N, 113.68°E, ∼1240 m) on December 17, 2003, and on the top of Mt. Jiugong (29.39°N, 114.65°E, ∼1550 m) on July 24, 2004. Based on these observation data, the scientific data processing software has been developed and is used to retrieve successfully the atmospheric refractivity profiles. The validation experiment was performed on the top of Mt. Wuling (40.60°N, 117.48°E, ∼2118 m) during August 1–29, 2005. Collocated automatic weather station and the radiosondes nearby were operated simultaneously for the comparison campaign. Results show that the radio occultation technique obtained about 40 profiles every day with the receiver antenna pointing to the south. Comparisons show that the refractivity measured by occultation agree well with those by the radiosondes, but not well with those by the automatic weather station due to their much different geographic locations of measurements. Results of these experiments suggest that the mountain-based GPS radio occultation is an economic reliable novel technique monitoring temporal and spatial variations of local lower atmospheric environments.     

Comparing TOPEX TEC measurements with IRI predictions

TEC values obtained from TOPEX satellite were compared with the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) 2001 model estimates. The present work also shows results of the IRI model with the option of a new topside electron density distribution (NeQuick model). TOPEX TEC measurements, which include years of high and middle to low solar activity (2000 and 2004), were analyzed by binning the region covered by the satellite (±66°) every five degrees of modip. In general, there is good agreement between IRI predictions and Topex measurements. Cases with large disagreements are observed at low and high latitudes during high solar activity. Comparing the model predictions using the default IRI2001 model and the NeQuick topside option show that the default IRI 2001 version represents the observed data in a more realistic way, but appears to be less reliable at high and low latitudes in some cases.     

Strategic, technological and ethical aspects of establishing colonies on Moon and Mars

With the vast experience gained by Aerospace Community in the last five decades, the natural future course of action will be to expand Space Exploration. Our understanding of Moon is relatively better with a number of unmanned satellite missions carried out by the leading Space Agencies and manned missions to Moon by USA. Also a number of unmanned satellite missions and surface rover missions were carried out to Mars by those Space agencies generating many new details about Mars. While the future exploration efforts by global community will also be centered obviously on Moon and Mars, it is noteworthy that already NASA had declared its plans for establishing a Surface Base on Moon and developing the technical infrastructure required. Surface Bases on Moon and Mars give rise to a number of strategic, technical and ethical issues both in the process of development, and in the process of establishing the bases. The strategic issues related to Moon and Mars Surface Bases will be centered around development of enabling technologies, cost of the missions, and international cooperation. The obvious path for tackling both the technological development and cost issues will be through innovative and new means of international cooperation. International cooperation can take many forms like—all capable players joining a leader, or sharing of tasks at system level, or all players having their independent programmes with agreed common interfaces of the items being taken to and left on the surface of Moon/Mars. Each model has its own unique features. Among the technical issues, the first one is that of the Mission Objectives—why Surface Bases have to be developed and what will be the activity of crew on Surface Bases? Surface Bases have to meet mainly the issues on long term survivability of humans on the Mars/Moon with their specific atmosphere, gravity and surface characteristics. Moon offers excellent advantages for astronomy while posing difficulties with respect to solar power utilization and extreme temperature variations. Hence the technical challenges depend on a number of factors starting from mission requirements. Obviously the most important technical challenge to be addressed will be in the areas of crew safety, crew survivability, adequate provision to overcome contingencies, and in-situ resource utilization. Towards this, new innovations will be developed in areas such as specialized space suits, rovers, power and communication systems, and ascent and descent modules. The biggest ethical issue is whether humankind from Earth is targeting ‘habitation’ or ‘colonization’ of Moon/Mars. The next question will be whether the in-situ resource exploitation will be only for carrying out further missions to other planets from Moon/Mars or for utilization on Earth. The third ethical issue will be the long term impact of pollution on Moon/Mars due to technologies employed for power generation and other logistics on Surfaces. The paper elaborates the views of the authors on the strategic, technical and ethical aspects of establishing Surface Bases and colonies on Moon and Mars. The underlying assumptions and gray areas under each aspect will be explained with the resulting long-term implications.     

Gurney flap—Lift enhancement,mechanisms and applications

Since its invention by a race car driver Dan Gurney in 1960s, the Gurney flap has been used to enhance the aerodynamics performance of subsonic and supercritical airfoils, high-lift devices and delta wings. In order to take stock of recent research and development of Gurney flap, we have carried out a review of the characteristics and mechanisms of lift enhancement by the Gurney flap and its applications. Optimum design of the Gurney flap is also summarized in this paper. For the Gurney flap to be effective, it should be mounted at the trailing edge perpendicular to the chord line of airfoil or wing. The flap height must be of the order of local boundary layer thickness. For subsonic airfoils, an additional Gurney flap increases the pressure on the upstream surface of the Gurney flap, which increases the total pressure of the lower surface. At the same time, a long wake downstream of the flap containing a pair of counter-rotating vortices can delay or eliminate the flow separation near the trailing edge on the upper surface. Correspondingly, the total suction on the airfoil is increased. For supercritical airfoils, the lift enhancement of the Gurney flap mainly comes from its ability to shift the shock on the upper surface in the downstream. Applications of the Gurney flap to modern aircraft design are also discussed in this review.     

Power-law spectra of energetic electrons in solar flares from the maximum entropy and dimensional considerations

The maximum entropy formalism and dimensional analysis are used to derive a power-law spectrum of accelerated electrons in impulsive solar flares, where the particles can contain a significant fraction of the total flare energy. Entropy considerations are used to derive a power-law spectrum for a particle distribution characterised by its order of magnitude of energy. The derivation extends an earlier one-dimensional argument to the case of an isotropic three-dimensional particle distribution. Dimensional arguments employ the idea that the spectrum should reflect a balance between the processes of energy input into the corona and energy dissipation in solar flares. The governing parameters are suggested on theoretical grounds and shown to be consistent with solar flare observations. The flare electron flux, differential in the non-relativistic electron kinetic energy E, is predicted to scale as $E^{-3}$. This scaling is in agreement with RHESSI measurements of the hard X-ray flux that is generated by deka-keV electrons, accelerated in intense solar flares.     

Semi-empirical model of middle atmosphere wind from the ground to the lower thermosphere

During recent years, special attention has been paid to understanding the background circulation of the middle atmosphere. Particularly in the mesosphere/lower thermosphere (MLT) region, this has involved including data from a range of new radar measurements. It has also involved the comparison of existing empirical middle atmosphere wind models, such as CIRA-86 and HWM-93 to the new data. This has led to the construction of empirical models of MLT winds such as the Global Empirical Wind Model (GEWM). Further investigations are aimed at the construction of new empirical and semi-empirical wind models of the entire middle atmosphere including these new experimental results. The results of a new wind climatology (0–100 km) are presented here, based upon the GEWM, a reanalysis of stratospheric data, and a numerical model which is used to fill the gap between data from the stratospheric and MLT regions.     

Modeling of LEO orbital debris populations for ORDEM2008

The NASA Orbital Debris Engineering Model, ORDEM2000, is in the process of being updated to a new version: ORDEM2008. The data-driven ORDEM covers a spectrum of object size from 10 μm to greater than 1 m, and ranging from LEO (low Earth orbit) to GEO (geosynchronous orbit) altitude regimes. ORDEM2008 centimeter-sized populations are statistically derived from Haystack and HAX (the Haystack Auxiliary) radar data, while micron-sized populations are estimated from shuttle impact records. Each of the model populations consists of a large number of orbits with specified orbital elements, the number of objects on each orbit (with corresponding uncertainty), and the size, type, and material assignment for each object. This paper describes the general methodology and procedure commonly used in the statistical inference of the ORDEM2008 LEO debris populations. Major steps in the population derivations include data analysis, reference-population construction, definition of model parameters in terms of reference populations, linking model parameters with data, seeking best estimates for the model parameters, uncertainty analysis, and assessment of the outcomes. To demonstrate the population-derivation process and to validate the Bayesian statistical model applied in the population derivations throughout, this paper uses illustrative examples for the special cases of large-size (>1 m, >32 cm, and >10 cm) populations that are tracked by SSN (the Space Surveillance Network) and also monitored by Haystack and HAX radars operating in a staring mode.     

Quasi-biennial oscillation signals in outgoing long-wave radiation of the equator

In the present paper, the authors use wavelet transform technique to study time-series of outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR) anomaly at the equator during 1979–2005. The results show that quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) signals exist in the OLR variation and the QBO cycle has remarkable temporal variability in its amplitude and phase. The periodic length of the QBO fluctuation is about 2.2-year before 1986. After that time, the length mainly changes from about 2.4- to 2.6-year. Analyzing the anomaly data set of 850 MB trade wind index (TWI) at west Pacific during this period, we have found that the obvious time-variations characteristics of the QBO cycle also exist in the TWI change at west Pacific and are in good consistence with that of the OLR change. The quasi-biennial fluctuation of the TWI change can explain that of the OLR change to a large extent.     

Observations of electromagnetic emissions inside the Earth’s plasmasphere from the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Interball-1</Emphasis> satellite

The spectrum analyzer AKR-X onboard the Interball-1 satellite at the beginning (August–October 1995) and at the end (August–October 2000) of satellite operation in perigees of its orbital motion recorded and analyzed electromagnetic emissions of the inner regions of the Earth’s plasmasphere in the frequency band 100–1500 kHz at distances of 1.1–1.8 R _E. The observations have shown that the electromagnetic modes (the Z and LO modes escaping the magnetosphere) which are formed at the altitudes 600–4000 km are associated with the subauroral nonthermal continuum and with the recently discovered kilometric continuum. There are noticeable differences in the spectral character of these emissions during the minimum (1996) and maximum (2000) solar activity, when, as a rule, the LO mode escaping the plasmaphere and the continua are not present.