ATS-6 Energetic Particle Radiation Measurement at Synchronous Altitude

The Aerospace Corporation energetic electron-proton spectrometer operating on Applications Technology Satellite-6 (ATS-6) detects energetic electrons in four channels between 140 keV and greater than 32 MeV, and measures energetic protons in five energy channels between 2.3 and 80 MeV and energetic alpha particles in three channels between 9.4 and 94 MeV. After more than a year of operation in orbit, the experiment continues to return excellent data on the behavior of energetic magnetospheric electrons as well as information regarding the fluxes of solar protons and alpha particles.     

A survey of the outer planets Jupiter,Saturn, Uranus,Neptune, Pluto,and their satellites

A survey of current knowledge about Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and their satellites is presented. The best available numerical values are given for physical parameters, including orbital and body properties, atmospheric composition and structure, and photometric parameters. The more acceptable current theories of these bodies are outlined with thorough referencing offering access to the details. The survey attempts to cover the literature through May 1, 1972. Prepared Under Contract No. NAS7-100 National Aeronautics and Space Administration.     

An Aspect of Determining the Range of Radar Detection

The determination of the range of radar is carried out according to statistical methods which are not always immediate. For this reason, a parametrical method is proposed which condenses the elements necessary for this calculation in the form of three abaci. Furthermore, a general formula condenses this result, and the formula is extended to the other transmission systems.     

Comments on Stabilization of a Satellite

An expression is derived for the cost resultingfrom the stabilization of a satellite using aspecific optimal control (SOC). An exampleis given in which the optimal and SOC yieldvirtually identical costs.     

Solar Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy

Interactions of ions accelerated in solar flares produce gamma-ray lines and continuum and neutrons. These emissions contain a rich set of observables that provides information about both the accelerated ions and the environment where the ions are transported and interact. Ion interactions with the various nuclei present in the ambient medium produce gamma-ray lines at unique energies. How abundance information is extracted from the measurements is discussed and results from analyses of a number of solar flares are presented. The analyses indicate that the composition of the ambient gas where the ions interact (typically at chromospheric densities) is different from that of the photosphere and more like the composition of the corona, exhibiting low-FIP elemental enhancements that may vary from flare to flare. Evidence for increased Ne/O and the photospheric ³He abundance is also discussed.     

Adaptive cancellation method for geometry-induced nonstationary bistatic clutter environments

This paper describes and characterizes a new bistatic space-time adaptive processing (STAP) clutter mitigation method. The approach involves estimating and compensating aspects of the spatially varying bistatic clutter response in both angle and Doppler prior to adaptive clutter suppression. An important feature of the proposed method is its ability to extract requisite implementation information from the data itself, rather than rely on ancillary - and possibly erroneous or missing - system measurements. We justify the essence of the proposed method by showing its ability to align the dominant clutter subspaces of each range realization relative to a suitably chosen reference point as a means of homogenizing the space-time data set. Moreover, we numerically characterize performance using synthetic bistatic clutter data. For the examples considered herein, the proposed bistatic STAP method leads to maximum performance improvements between 17.25 dB and 20.75 dB relative to traditional STAP application, with average improvements of 6 dB to 10 dB.     

Remote data sensing using SAR and harmonic reradiators

In sensor networks distributed over large areas, communication by means of active transmitters on sensor nodes is inherently energy expensive and poses a significant bottleneck to achieve a long battery life. We propose modulated reradiation of radar illumination as a means to transmit information from a group of sensors to an airborne radar. This puts the communications energy burden on the radar transmitter rather than on the sensor nodes, thus increasing their battery lifetimes. To distinguish the sensor return from the clutter return, the modulation on the sensors is done by switching a nonlinear load on the sensor antenna and processing the harmonic reradiation. We present techniques to transmit information from the sensors, which use stripmap mode synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ideas to decode the information and to simultaneously obtain a geographic map of the sensor locations.     

The Solar Chemical Composition

We present our current knowledge of the solar chemical composition based on the recent significant downward revision of the solar photospheric abundances of the most abundant metals. These new solar abundances result from the use of a 3D hydrodynamic model of the solar atmosphere instead of the classical 1D hydrostatic models, accounting for departures from LTE, and improved atomic and molecular data. With these abundances, the new solar metallicity, Z, decreases to Z=0.012, almost a factor of two lower than earlier widely used values. We compare our values with data from other sources and analyse a number of impacts of these new photospheric abundances. While resolving a number of longstanding problems, the new 3D-based solar photospheric composition also poses serious challenges for the standard solar model as judged by helioseismology.     

Search radar detection and track with the Hough transform. II.detection statistics

For pt.I see ibid., vol.30, no.1, (Jan.1994). This paper describes the calculation of P_F and P_D for the Hough transform technique when the primary threshold crossings are weighted by their power before transforming (i.e., noncoherent integration). After expressions for P_F and P_D are derived, we examine the question of optimal granularity of the Hough accumulator space. We also investigate the relationship between primary and secondary thresholds and its effect on detectability     

Steady-state analysis of the constant-frequency clamped seriesresonant converter

A constant-frequency diode-clamped series resonant converter (CFCSRC) is proposed as a solution to problems associated with frequency-controlled resonant converters. This converter has two resonant frequencies, and control is achieved by varying the relative time spent at each switching frequency. Two zero-current-switching (ZCS) modes are examined and plotted in the output plane. An equation is given for the boundary between the two ZCS modes, as well as an expression for the boundary between ZCS and non-ZCS operation; both are plotted in the output plane. The output equation for the main mode is shown to be hyperbolic. Converter peak voltages limited to the input voltages, and peak currents are less than those of the frequency-controlled clamped series resonant converter over a large operating range. Data from a prototype converter are compared with theoretical data and are shown to be in good agreement with the theoretical model