CREAM: 70 days of flight from 2 launches in Antarctica

The Cosmic-Ray Energetics And Mass balloon-borne experiment has been launched twice in Antarctica, first in December 2004 and again in December 2005. It circumnavigated the South Pole three times during the first flight, which set a flight duration record of 42 days. A cumulative duration of 70 days within 13 months was achieved when the second flight completed 28 days during two circumnavigations of the Pole on 13 January 2006. Both the science instrument and support systems functioned extremely well, and a total 117 GB of data including 67 million science events were collected during these two flights. Preliminary analysis indicates that the data extend well above 100 TeV and follow reasonable power laws. The payload recovered from the first flight has been refurbished for the third flight in 2007, whereas the payload from the second flight is being refurbished to be ready for the fourth flight in 2008. Each flight will extend the reach of precise cosmic-ray composition measurements to energies not previously possible.     

Gamma-ray detector on board lunar mission Chang’E-1

Gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS) is included in the payload of Chinese first lunar mission Chang’E-1 that will be launched in 2007. Specific objectives of the GRS are to map abundance of O, Si, Fe, Ti, U, Th, K, and perhaps, Mg, Al, and Ca to depths of about 20 cm. There are remarkable advantages for GRS application to remote sensing elemental materials over the entire lunar surface: large effective area and good ability for background rejection. We will describe the design of GRS and present its performance in this paper. Moreover, the GRS calibration will also be introduced.     

Research on Nonlinear Deformation and Stability of an Advanced Aircraft Fuselage Composite Section under Pure Bending

The finite element algorithm developed by the authors has been used for solving the strength and stability problems of shells. The effect of deformation nonlinearity, stiffness of stringer set, shell thickness on critical loads has been determined.     

The influence of the noise field on parametric oscillations of flexible square plates

This paper examines the impact of the external field intensity of white noise on the nonlinear dynamics of square plates under the longitudinal load. It is shown that in some cases, the noise of high intensity is able to reduce the number of frequencies in the oscillation spectrum of the system.     

Heavy ion induced changes in small intestinal parameters.

The effects on 17 different structural parameters of mouse small intestine three days after treatment with three types of heavy ion (neon, iron and niobium) are compared, the first two being of particular relevance to space flight. The data for niobium are given in full, showing that changes after niobium ion treatment are not standard and are concentrated in the epithelial compartment, with few of the parameters having a response which is dose dependent. When comparisons are made for the three types of heavy ion, the damage is greatest after neon ion irradiation, implying that the additional non-epithelial damage produced as LET rises from X rays through neutrons to neon ions is not necessarily maintained as LET continues to rise. Further understanding is therefore needed of the balance between changes affecting the vascular and absorptive components of the organ. Variation from group to group is also important, as is variation of strain or gastrointestinal status. All such factors are important in the understanding of changes in multicellular organs after exposure to heavy ion radiation.     

Hypersonic flows over slender circular cones at small angles of attack

This paper presents a perturbation theory for hypersonic flows past pointed-nose slender bodies of revolution at small angles of attack. The theory presents the counter part of other theories on two-dimensional flow, axisymmetric flow, and flow past delta wings, in the case of bodies of revolution. Further restricting the analysis to Newtonian flow, a straightforward perturbation in the angle of attack is applied to the equations obtained and the resulting equations are solved only for circular cones. A striking feature of this approach is the absence of a vortical layer and a uniformally valid solution at body surface and all over the flowfield. In spite of the yaw angle, conical streamlines at cone surface are predicted which bend around towards the leeward plane. Results obtained for the surface pressure and the shock wave of a circular cone compare very well with other approximate calculations and experiment.     

A passive tracking filter for missile capture

A practical filter is suggested for ground-based missile tracking in a capture-guidance mode utilizing angle-only measurements from a passive missile sensor, and its performance is evaluated by a realistic system-simulation study. A missile-acceleration model that provides inputs to the filter is also suggested. The filter has a decoupled structure of independent azimuth and elevation channels, which requires fewer computations in solving the filter gain compared to a coupled structure. Simulation results show good tracking performance of the filter when used in association with the proposed missile-acceleration model     

Atmospheric dynamics and bioregenerative technologies in a soil-based ecological life support system: initial results from Biosphere 2.

Biosphere 2 is the first man-made, soil-based, bioregenerative life support system to be developed and tested. The utilization and amendment of local space resources, e.g. martian soil or lunar regolith, for agricultural and other purposes will be necessary if we are to minimize the requirement for Earth materials in the creation of long-term off-planet bases and habitations. Several of the roles soil plays in Biosphere 2 are 1) for air purification 2) as a key component in created wetland systems to recycle human and animal wastes and 3) as nutrient base for a sustainable agricultural cropping program. Initial results from the Biosphere 2 closure experiment are presented. These include the accelerated cycling rates due to small reservoir sizes, strong diurnal and seasonal fluxes in atmospheric CO2, an unexpected and continuing decline in atmospheric oxygen, overall maintenance of low levels of trace gases, recycling of waste waters through biological regeneration systems, and operation of an agriculture designed to provide diverse and nutritionally adequate diets for the crew members.