Russian program of planetary missions

In the area of Solar System Exploration most of recently proposed mission oriented to the studies of Mars. Except MARS-96 and possibly MARS SAMPLE RETURN missions other Mars missions use Molnija class launchers. All Russian missions heavily involve international partners.     

The Suess-Urey mission (return of solar matter to Earth)

The Suess-Urey (S-U) mission has been proposed as a NASA Discovery mission to return samples of matter from the Sun to the Earth for isotopic and chemical analyses in terrestrial laboratories to provide a major improvement in our knowledge of the average chemical and isotopic composition of the solar system. The S-U spacecraft and sample return capsule will be placed in a halo orbit around the L1 Sun-Earth libration point for two years to collect solar wind ions which implant into large passive collectors made of ultra-pure materials. Constant Spacecraft-Sun-Earth geometries enable simple spin stabilized attitude control, simple passive thermal control, and a fixed medium gain antenna. Low data requirements and the safety of a Sun-pointed spinner, result in extremely low mission operations costs.     

Cyclotron masers and solar spike bursts

The theory of electron cyclotron maser emission and its application to solar spike bursts are reviewed. By analogy with the Earth's AKR, three sources of free energy are considered: a loss-cone anisotropy, a velocity-space hole, and a trapped distribution. The problem of how the radiation escapes through the second harmonic absorption layer is emphasized. Harmonic emission due to z mode coalescence may operate for some bursts, but the 2–5s delay between hard X-ray bursts and spike bursts suggests that some other mechanisms is required for most spike bursts. A model involving formation of a trapped distribution in low-density regions neighboring the flaring flux tube is considered.     

3D nonlinear wave heating of coronal loops

The heating of solar coronal loops by the resonant absorption or phase-mixing of incident wave energy is investigated in the framework of 3D nonlinear magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) by means of numerical simulations.     

Periodicities of the LDE-type flare occurrence (1969 - 1992).

The power spectrum was calculated for the time series of the LDE-type flare occurrence during the last three solar cycles (the 20-th, the 21-st and the first part of the 22-nd cycle). LDE-type flares (Long Duration Events in SXR) are associated with the interplanetary protons (SEP and STIP as well), energized coronal arches and radio type IV emission. Generally, in all the cycles considered, LDE-type flares mainly originated during a 6-year interval of the respective cycle (2 years before and 4 years after the sunspot cycle maximum). The following significant periodicities were found: in the 20-th cycle: 1.4, 2.1, 2.9, 4.0, 10.7 and 54.2 of month; in the 21-st cycle: 1.2, 1.6, 2.8, 4.9, 7.8 and 44.5 of month; in the 22-nd cycle, till March 1992: 1.4, 1.8, 2.4, 7.2, 8.7, 11.8 and 29.1 of month; in all interval (1969-1992): 1. the longer periodicities: 232.1, 121.1 (the dominant at 10.1 of year), 80.7, 61.9 and 25.6 of month, 2. the shorter periodicities: 4.7, 5.0, 6.8, 7.9, 9.1, 15.8 and 20.4 of month. Solar variability has an extremely complex time dependence. The Sun is a multiperiodic system. The strong periodicities "near 155 and 270 days" were found also in the LDE-type flare occurrence.     

Transition region line-shifts in the rebound shock spicule model

Spectral emission lines created in the solar chromosphere — corona transition region show net red-shifts. It has been proposed that this may be the result of the return of spicular material. We simulate a spicule numerically using the rebound shock model and find that the resulting hydrodynamic evolution leads to a perceived up-flow in transition region spectral lines even though the average velocity in the line forming region is directed downward. The explanation for this apparent paradox is found in the correlation between density and velocity in the waves generated by the rebound shock spicule.     

Induction of high grade astrocytoma (HGA) by protons: molecular mechanisms and RBE considerations.

Protons of a specific energy, 55 MeV, have been found to induce primary high grade astrocytomas (HGA) in the Rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta). Brain tumors of this type were not induced by protons of other energies (32-2,300 MeV). Induction of HGA has been identified in human patients who have had radiation therapy to the head. We believe that the induction of HGA in the monkey is a consequence of dose distribution, not some unique "toxic" property of protons. Comparison of the human experience with the monkey data indicates the RBE for induction of brain tumors to be about one. It is unlikely that protons cause an unusual change in oncogenic expression, as compared to conventional electromagnetic radiation.     

CELSS nutrition system utilizing snails

At the 40th IAF Congress in Malaga, a nutrition system for a lunar base CELSS was presented. A lunar base with a total of eight crew members was envisaged. In this paper, four species of plants--rice, soybean, lettuce and strawberry--were introduced to the system. These plants were sufficient to satisfy fundamental nutritional needs of the crew members. The supply of nutrition from plants and the human nutritional requirements could almost be balanced. Our study revealed that the necessary plant cultivation area per crew member would be nearly 40 m3 in the lunar base. The sources of nutrition considered in the study were energy, sugar, fat, amino acids, inorganic salt and vitamins; however, calcium, vitamin B2, vitamin A and sodium were found to be lacking. Therefore, a subsystem to supply these elements is of considerable value. In this paper, we report on a study for breeding snails and utilizing meat as food. Nutrients supplied from snails are shown to compensate for the above mentioned lacking elements. We evaluate the snail breeder and the associated food supply system as a subsystem of closed ecological life support system.     

A dissection of 30 Doradus and a discussion of other Magellanic Cloud OB associations

I Present the results of ground-based and Hubble Space Telescope photometry and spectroscopy of the stars in the central region (roughly 7×7 arcmin) of 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Using photometric data for over 2400 stars (complete toV18 mag), and spectroscopic observations of over 150 stars in the region, the best estimate of the initial mass function (IMF) yields a slope of =–1.5±0.2 for masses > 12M, where the Salpeter slope is =–1.35. I compare these results to other measurements of the IMF for OB associations in the Magellanic Clouds.