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.     

On the time of minimum ionization in the F2 region

Using measurements of the critical frequency of F2 region (f_oF2) the validity of the International Reference Ionosphere model to predict the time of minimum ionization is checked. Data obtained at different ionospheric stations have been considered. The CCIR and URSI options are used to model calculations. For CCIR option the results show that good predictions were obtained for about 40% of the considered cases. For the rest of the considered data, the model predicts the minimum at times earlier than that observed in the measurements. The percentages of good predictions obtained with URSI option are lower than those corresponding to CCIR one.     

A conceptual configuration of the lunar base bioregenerative life support system including soil-like substrate for growing plants

The paper presents a conceptual configuration of the lunar base bioregenerative life support system (LBLSS), including soil-like substrate (SLS) for growing plants. SLS makes it possible to combine the processes of plant growth and the utilization of plant waste. Plants are to be grown on SLS on the basis of 20 kg of dry SLS mass or 100 kg of wet SLS mass per square meter. The substrate is to be delivered to the base ready-made as part of the plant growth subsystem. Food for the crew was provided by prestored stock 24% and by plant growing system 76%. Total dry weight of the food is 631 g per day (2800 kcal/day) for one crew member (CM). The list of candidate plants to be grown under lunar BLSS conditions included 14 species: wheat, rice, soybean, peanuts, sweet pepper, carrots, tomatoes, coriander, cole, lettuce, radish, squash, onion and garlic. From the prestored stock the crew consumed canned fish, iodinated salt, sugar, beef sauce and seafood sauce. Our calculations show that to provide one CM with plant food requires the area of 47.5 m². The balance of substance is achieved by the removal dehydrated urine 59 g, feces 31 g, food waste 50 g, SLS 134 g, and also waters 86 g from system and introduction food 236 g, liquid potassium soap 4 g and mineral salts 120 g into system daily. To reduce system setup time the first plants could be sowed and germinated to a certain age on the Earth.     

随机扰动情况下绳系卫星状态保持阶段的最优控制

在考虑系绳弹性的情况下, 建立绳系卫星轨道面内运动的动力学模型, 并在系统平衡位置线性化, 得到绳系子星在随机扰动作用下的稳态保持状态方程. 引入基于卡尔曼滤波的状态估计方法和最优状态反馈控制策略, 提出了保持系统稳态运行的控制方法, 并以YES2空间系绳试验为参考模型设计了稳态保持控制系统. 分别在不考虑系绳弹性和考虑系绳弹性的系统模型下进行相应仿真分析, 结果表明所提出的控制方法能使系统具有良好的抗干扰性能, 系绳控制张力变化平缓且幅值小, 提高了系统状态保持阶段的可靠性和安全性. 同时系绳刚度系数的减小可使系绳纵向振动加剧, 但对横向摆动影响较小, 这为选取合适的系绳材料提供了理论参考.      

Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) on-board Chandrayaan-2 orbiter

The remote X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy is a powerful technique to investigate the elemental abundances in the atmosphere-less planetary bodies. The experiment involves measuring spectra of fluorescent X-rays from lunar surface using a low energy X-ray detector onboard an orbiting satellite. Since the flux of fluorescent X-ray lines critically depend on the flux and spectrum of the incident solar X-rays, it is essential to have simultaneous and accurate measurement of X-ray from both Moon and Sun. In the context of Moon, this technique has been employed since early days of space exploration to determine elemental composition of lunar surface. However, so far it has not been possible to exploit it to its full potential due to various reasons. Therefore it is planned to continue the remote X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy experiment on-board Chandrayaan-2 which includes both lunar X-ray observations and solar X-ray observations as two separate payloads. The lunar X-ray observations will be carried out by Chandra Large Area Soft x-ray Spectrometer (CLASS) experiment; whereas the solar X-ray observations will be carried out by a separate payload, Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM). Here we present the overall design of the XSM instrument, the present development status as well as preliminary results of the laboratory model testing. XSM instrument will have two packages namely – XSM sensor package and XSM electronics package. XSM will accurately measure spectrum of Solar X-rays in the energy range of 1–15 keV with energy resolution ∼200 eV @ 5.9 keV. This will be achieved by using state-of-the-art Silicon Drift Detector (SDD), which has a unique capability of maintaining high energy resolution at very high incident count rate expected from Solar X-rays. XSM onboard Chandrayaan-2 will be the first experiment to use such detector for Solar X-ray monitoring.     

Verification of shielding effect by the water-filled materials for space radiation in the International Space Station using passive dosimeters

The dose reduction effects for space radiation by installation of water shielding material (“protective curtain”) of a stack board consisting of the hygienic wipes and towels have been experimentally evaluated in the International Space Station by using passive dosimeters. The averaged water thickness of the protective curtain was 6.3 g/cm². The passive dosimeters consisted of a combination of thermoluminescent detectors (TLDs) and plastic nuclear track detectors (PNTDs). Totally 12 passive dosimeter packages were installed in the Russian Service Module during late 2010. Half of the packages were located at the protective curtain surface and the other half were at the crew cabin wall behind or aside the protective curtain. The mean absorbed dose and dose equivalent rates are measured to be 327 μGy/day and 821 μSv/day for the unprotected packages and 224 μGy/day and 575 μSv/day for the protected packages, respectively. The observed dose reduction rate with protective curtain was found to be 37 ± 7% in dose equivalent, which was consistent with the calculation in the spherical water phantom by PHITS. The contributions due to low and high LET particles were found to be comparable in observed dose reduction rate. The protective curtain would be effective shielding material for not only trapped particles (several 10 MeV) but also for low energy galactic cosmic rays (several 100 MeV/n). The properly utilized protective curtain will effectively reduce the radiation dose for crew living in space station and prolong long-term mission in the future.     

航天器集群控制与规划算法仿真验证平台设计

航天器集群作为一种新兴的多航天器协同模式,已经成为分布式空间系统的一个重要研究课题。很多关于航天器集群的关键技术需要在地面进行仿真、分析和验证。针对上述需求,设计了一种仿真验证平台,在地面实现了对航天器智能集群导航、规划与控制算法的全物理分析和验证。首先,给出了仿真验证平台的几种位姿识别方案,重点分析了一种基于单目相机的全局位姿识别技术,提出了一种基于气浮技术的航天器集群控制与规划算法仿真验证平台的总体设计方案,并定义了集群的运动场行为函数,设计了基于滑模控制的路径规划算法。最后,通过仿真验证了本方法的可行性和有效性。     

几何非线性固体壳单元新列式的研究

通过定义广义应力，提出了一个改进的刚度矩阵，以克服固体壳元的厚度自锁问题；由一个基于广义应力的新的非线性变分泛函，推导了一个用于几何非线性分析的十八节点固体壳单元，精心选择低、高阶应力插值模式，保证二者正交，且对应于低阶项的刚度阵与减缩积分单元相当，对应高阶项的刚度阵用于克服单元的零能模式且可推得显式，从而显著提高了计算效率，此外该单元还拥有优秀的收敛性能，即使在非常大的载荷步下也能取得好的收敛结果。     

Leaf proteomic analysis of three rice heritable mutants after seed space flight

To explore the proteomic changes of heritable variant rice plants induced by space environment, three mutants were selected after seed space flight by comparing the phenotypes with their on-ground controls. R955 grew more tillers and became dwarf, 971-5 acquired higher grain yield and better stress resistance, 974-5 matured earlier. Leaf proteins were extracted during the tiller development and analyzed by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2-D PAGE). More than 300 proteins were detected as reproducible Coomassie Brilliant Blue stained spots with pI values from around 4.0 to 7.0. Five proteins that changed significantly over the controls were identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). The main functions of these proteins were photosynthesis, stress defense and metabolism including RuBisCO activase, glycine rich RNA binding protein, peroxidase, triosephosphate isomerase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase, which might be probably associated with the altered phenotypes. Quantitative analyses were also applied: less total protein spots and more down-regulated protein spots were detected in the mutants, indicating there might be a major loss of protein in heritable variant rice plants after seed space flight. These results may provide new insights to understand the biological effects of space environment to rice.