Radiative and hybrid cooling of infrared space telescopes

The designs of cold space telescopes, cryogenic and radiatively cooled, are similar in most elements and both benefit from orbits distant from the Earth. In particular such orbits allow the anti-sunward side of radiatively-cooled spacecraft to be used to provide large cooling radiators for the individual radiation shields. Designs incorporating these features have predictedT _tel near 20 K. The attainability of such temperatures is supported by limited practical experience (IRAS, COBE). Supplementary cooling systems (cryogens, mechanical coolers) can be advantageously combined with radiative cooling in hybrid designs to provide robustness against deterioration and yet lower temperatures for detectors, instruments, and even the whole telescope. The possibility of such major additional gains is illustrated by the Very Cold Telescope option under study forEdison, which should offerT _tel5 K for a little extra mechanical cooling capacity.     

Biological responses to space: results of the experiment "Exobiological Unit" of ERA on EURECA I.

Spores of different strains of Bacillus subtilis and the Escherichia coli plasmid pUC19 were exposed to selected conditions of space (space vacuum and/or defined wavebands and intensities of solar ultraviolet radiation) in the experiment ER 161 "Exobiological Unit" of the Exobiology Radiation Assembly (ERA) on board of the European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA). After the approximately 11 months lasting mission, their responses were studied in terms of survival, mutagenesis in the his (B. subtilis) or lac locus (pUC19), induction of DNA strand breaks, efficiency of DNA repair systems, and the role of external protective agents. The data were compared with those of a simultaneously running ground control experiment. The survival of spores treated with the vacuum of space, however shielded against solar radiation, is substantially increased, if they are exposed in multilayers and/or in the presence of glucose as protective, whereas all spores in "artificial meteorites", i.e. embedded in clays or simulated Martian soil, are killed. Vacuum treatment leads to an increase of mutation frequency in spores, but not in plasmid DNA. Extraterrestrial solar ultraviolet radiation is mutagenic, induces strand breaks in the DNA and reduces survival substantially; however, even at the highest fluences, i.e. 3 x 10(8) J m-2, a small but significant fraction of spores survives the insolation. Action spectroscopy confirms results of previous space experiments of a synergistic action of space vacuum and solar UV radiation with DNA being the critical target.     

Spatial orientation during locomotion [correction of locomation] following space flight

To investigate changes in spatial orientation ability and walking performance following space flight, 7 astronaut subjects were asked pre- and post-flight to perform a goal directed locomotion paradigm which consisted of walking a triangular path with and without vision. This new paradigm, involving inputs from different sensory systems, allows quantification of several critical parameters, like orientation performance, walking velocities and postural stability, in a natural walking task. The paper presented here mainly focusses on spatial orientation performance quantified by the errors in walking the previously seen path without vision. Errors in length and reaching the corners did not change significantly from pre- to post-flight, while absolute angular errors slightly increased post-flight. The significant decrease in walking velocity and a change in head-trunk coordination while walking around the corners of the path observed post-flight may suggest that during re-adaptation to gravity the mechanisms which are necessary to perform the task have to be re-accomplished.     

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.     

The effect of head-down tilt on brain potentials related to visual attention

To study the possible effect of simulated weightlessness on brain function state, the brain event-related potentials (ERPs) in a simple visual selective response task were compared between HDT and HUT in 9 normal subjects. The results were: The Target(T) and non-Target(NT) flash signals both induced significant slow positive potentials which were supposed to related to the attention state; the amplitude of the positive potentials in frontal regions decreased significantly especially for NT-ERPs during HDT comprared with that during HUT. The data reported provide new evidence indicating that more attention should be paid on the brain function study during space flight.     

Effect of potassium and calcium loading on healthy subjects under hypokinesia and physical exercise with fluid and salt supplements

The objective of this investigation was to determine the acute responses to the electrolyte challenges under hypokinesia and physical exercise (PE) of different intensities with fluid and salt supplementation (FSS). The studies were performed on 12 physically healthy male volunteers aged 19-24 years under 364 days of hypokinesia (decreased number of steps per day) with a set of PE with FSS. The volunteers were divided into two equal groups. The first group was subjected to a set of intensive PE and the second group was submitted to a set of moderate PE. Both groups of subjects consumed daily water and salt supplements that aimed to increase the body hydration level. For simulation of the hypokinetic effect all subjects were kept under an average of 3000 steps per day. Functional tests with a potassium chloride (KCl) and calcium lactate (Cal) load were performed during the hypokinetic period of 364 days and the 60-day, prehypokinetic period that served as control, while both groups of subjects consumed daily calcium and potassium supplements. The concentration of electrolyte and hormone levels in the blood and their excretion rate in urine were determined. Renal excretion of calcium and potassium and the blood concentration thereof increased markedly in both groups of subjects. With the potassium chloride load tests the increased potassium excretion was accompanied by higher aldosterone and insulin blood levels, and with the calcium lactate load tests the increased calcium excretion was accompanied by a decreased parathyroid content in the blood. FSS and PE, regardless of intensity, failed to attenuate calcium and potassium losses. Additional intake of KCl and Cal also failed to normalize potassium and calcium abnormalities. It was concluded that during the KCl and Cal loading tests, the increased losses of potassium and calcium in the hypokinetic subjects were due to the inability of their bodies to retain these electrolytes, and that electrolyte abnormalities could not be reversed by PE or rehydration in individuals subjected to prolonged restriction of motor activity.     

Analysis of Multimodal Systems

The estimation of a multimodal linear system whose mode-to-mode transitions are described by a finite-state Markov chain is described. The problem has application in studying separation standards in an air traffic control environment. An optimal solution is formulated which is computationally infeasible. A suboptimal estimator is then derived which closely approximates the optimal estimator. An example is presented to illustrate the technique.     

Interference between FM Carriers and a Digitally Modulated SCPC Circuit

The interference from the digital single channel per carrier (SCPC) circuits into frequency-modulated carrier systems has been calculated by convolving the desired and the interfering spectra extending the previously published works. Resulting interference noise power in FDM/FM systems covering a wide range of modulation indices and basebands has been presnted. Also plots of interference noise power as a function of the number of SCPC circuits have been presented for various values of carrier power to interference power ratios.     

Medium PRF set selection using evolutionary algorithms

This paper presents a new and novel method of selecting multiple pulse repetition frequency (PRF) sets for use in medium PRF pulsed-Doppler radars. Evolutionary algorithms are used to minimise the blind areas in the range/Doppler space. The evolutionary algorithm allows optimal solutions to be generated quickly, far faster than with exhaustive searches, and is fully automatic, unlike existing techniques. The evolved solutions compare very favorably against the results of both an exhaustive search and existing published PRF set selection methods. This evolutionary approach to generation of PRF sets is a major advance in medium PRF radar design.     

A new and robust CFAR detection algorithm

A constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detection method which is based on a combination of median and morphological filters (MEMO) is proposed. The MEMO algorithm has robust performance with small CFAR loss, very good behavior at clutter edges and high detection performance in the case of closely spaced narrowband signals (targets). The proposed MEMO method is favourably compared with cell averaging (CA) and ordered statistics (OS) CFAR detectors. The Monte Carlo method is employed to analyze the MEMO-CFAR detector