Observations of supergiant fast X-ray transients with LOFT

Supergiant fast X-ray transients are a subclass of high mass X-ray binaries displaying a peculiar and still poorly understood extreme variability in the X-ray domain. These sources undergo short sporadic outbursts (_LX∼$L_{\text{X}}\sim$ 10³⁶–10³⁷ erg s⁻¹), lasting few ks at the most, and spend a large fraction of their time in an intermediate luminosity state at about _LX∼$L_{\text{X}}\sim$ 10³³–10³⁴ erg s⁻¹. The sporadic and hardly predictable outbursts of supergiant fast X-ray transients were so far best discovered by large field of view (FOV) coded-mask instruments; their lower luminosity states require, instead, higher sensitivity focusing instruments to be studied in sufficient details. In this contribution, we provide a summary of the current knowledge on supergiant fast X-ray transients and explore the contribution that the new space mission concept LOFT, the Large Observatory for X-ray Timing, will be able to provide in the field of research of these objects.     

X-ray pulsar-based navigation system with the errors in the planetary ephemerides for Earth-orbiting satellite

The objective of this paper is to investigate and reduce the impact of the errors in the planetary ephemerides on X-ray pulsar-based navigation system for Earth-orbiting satellite. Expressions of the system biases caused by the errors in the planetary ephemerides are derived. The result of investigation has shown that the impact of the error in Earth’s ephemeris is must greater than the errors in the other ephemerides and would greatly degrade the performance of X-ray pulsar-based navigation system. Moreover, the system bias is modeled as a slowly time-varying process, and is handled by including it as a part of navigation state vector. It has been demonstrated that the proposed navigation system is completely observable, and some simulations are performed to verify its feasibility.     

H-450 X射线参考辐射质的研建及验证

根据PTB和ISO 4037-1:2019要求,关于高空气比释动能系列（H系列）X射线参考辐射质的推荐数据,外推得出H-450的附加过滤为6.24 mm Cu,第一半值层（HVL_1st）为(5.39~5.52)mm Cu,平均光子能量为(214.25~214.78)keV,剂量率为11.51 Gy/h（距离焦斑为1 m处,管电流为10 mA）。随后,使用PTW32005电离室作为测量器具,采用半值层法建立H-450 X射线参考辐射质,得出HVL_1st为5.37 mm Cu,第二半值层（HVL_2nd）为5.97 mm Cu,同质系数为0.9。最后,使用PTW30013次级标准电离室测量得出H-450 X射线参考辐射质下距离焦斑1 m,管电流为10 mA时的剂量率值为11.98 Gy/h,与理论值的相对误差为4.07 %。采用MCNP 5软件对H-450 X射线参考辐射质进行能谱模拟并计算得出其平均光子能量为200.4 keV。     

航空发动机球轴承剥落故障模式分析

为研究航空发动机球轴承的剥落故障模式,利用原子发射光谱技术、自动磨粒分析技术、铁谱技术及能谱分析技术对球 轴承加速等效试验滑油中磨粒的数量、大小、形貌及成分等信息进行分析。结果表明：金属颗粒污染物导致轴承出现初始疲劳剥 落;球轴承剥落的特征磨粒为滚动疲劳磨粒和球形磨粒,内衬套微动磨损的特征磨粒为铁的黑色氧化物和红色氧化铁磨粒;临近 轴承失效时,滑油中Fe元素质量分数由7.49×10 -6 增大至21.74×10 -6 ,特征磨粒数量也由48.9个/mL急剧增加至1433.8个/mL,且特 征磨粒直径主要分布在25～50 μm。金属颗粒污染物的存在使轴承承力内半圈滚道加速出现接触疲劳剥落,滚道剥落到一定程 度后,在轴向力、摩擦力及预紧力等综合作用下在内衬套与承力内半圈接触处发生微动磨损,进一步加剧了滚道的疲劳剥落,最终 导致球轴承失效。     

Sun CubE OnE: A multi-wavelength synoptic solar micro satellite

The Sun cubE onE (SEE) is a 12U CubeSat mission proposed for a phase A/B study to the Italian Space Agency that will investigate Gamma and X-ray fluxes and ultraviolet (UV) solar emission to support studies in Sun-Earth interaction and Space Weather from LEO. More in detail, SEE’s primary goals are to measure the flares emission from soft-X to Gamma ray energy range and to monitor the solar activity in the Fraunhofer Mg II doublet at 280 nm, taking advantage of a full disk imager payload. The Gamma and X-ray fluxes will be studied with unprecedented temporal resolution and with a multi-wavelength approach thanks to the combined use of silicon photodiode and silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) -based detectors. The flare spectrum will be explored from the keV to the MeV range of energies by the same payload, and with a cadence up to 10 kHz and with single-photon detection capabilities to unveil the sources of the solar flares. The energy range covers the same bands used by GOES satellites, which are the standard bands for flare magnitude definition. At the same time SiPM detectors combined with scintillators allow to cover the non-thermal bremsstrahlung emission in the gamma energy range. Given its UV imaging capabilities, SEE will be a key space asset to support detailed studies on solar activity, especially in relation to ultraviolet radiation which strongly interacts with the upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere, and in relation to space safety, included in the field of human space exploration. The main goal for the UV payload is to study the evolution of the solar UV emission in the Mg II band at two different time scales: yearly variations along the solar cycle and transient variations during flare events. The Mg II index is commonly used as a proxy of the solar activity in the Sun-as-a-star paradigm, in which solar irradiance variations in the UV correlate with the variations in stratospheric ozone concentrations and other physical parameters of the Earth high atmosphere. SEE data will be used together with space and ground-based observatories that provide Solar data (e.g. Solar Orbiter, IRIS, GONG, TSST), high energy particle fluxes (e.g. GOES, MAXI, CSES) and geomagnetic data in a multi-instrument/multi-wavelength/multi-messenger approach.     

X射线脉冲星计时导航应用模式与空间试验进展

结合国家导航体系发展与工程应用迫切需求，主要讨论了X射线脉冲星计时导航的应用模式，并介绍了国内外空间试验进展。总结了脉冲星计时地基射电与空间X射线观测的特点和发展现状，阐释了脉冲星时研究与发展的重要意义；总结并归纳了X射线脉冲星导航的应用特点和现有水平，讨论了X射线脉冲星导航的技术优势和典型应用场景；总结了国内外X射线脉冲星计时导航的空间试验进展。根据国内外的空间试验结果，脉冲星时稳定度可达10-14量级，脉冲星导航精度可达到km量级，初步具备在轨应用价值。因此，加快推进国内脉冲星计时导航技术的在轨演示验证与工程应用具有重要意义。     

Cramér-rao lower bound for pulsar rotation parameters estimation with X-ray pulsar observation data

In this paper, the Cramér-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) for estimating the rotation parameters of pulsars using X-ray pulsar observation data is deduced, and the calculation equation is presented. In order to verify the correctness of the deduced equation, we use the X-ray pulsar observation data to estimate pulsar rotation parameters, and obtain the root mean square error (RMSE) of the estimated pulsar rotation parameters through conducting repeated experiments. The experimental results suggest that when the observation time increases, the RMSE gradually approaches the estimated CRLB, and that when the observation time is 2.4 × 10⁶ s, the error between the RMSE of pulsar frequency estimation and the CRLB stays at 10^?11 order of magnitude. This verifies that the CRLB expression deduced in this paper is the theoretical lower bound for estimating pulsar rotation parameters. The deduced CRLB in this paper helps determine the minimum variance estimator for pulsar rotation parameter estimation using X-ray pulsar data, providing a benchmark for the comparison between the minimum variance estimator and other estimators.     

Distributed satellite autonomous navigation using X-ray pulsars

Distributed X-ray pulsar-based navigation (DXNAV) is an effective method to realize earth-orbit satellite positioning under weak pulsar signal conditions. In this paper, we propose a new DXNAV method based on multiple information fusion. The DXNAV system principle and the pulse phase estimate Cramér-Rao lower bound are deduced. To suppress the calculation complexity and the error source, the X-ray pulsar photon time-of-arrival detected by each satellite is equivalently converted to the leading satellite directly using the inter-satellite link ranging and starlight angular distance measurement. A high precision estimate model of the pulse phase is built using pulsar standard profile, observed profile, and star-geocentric angular distance from distributed satellites. The estimated pulse phase is real-time supplied to the navigation system, which is established in the form of a deviation equation. The two-stage Kalman filter is designed to estimate the pulse phase in profile histogram bin step and the leader position in real-time step. Compared separately with the maximum likelihood phase estimate method and the celestial navigation method using only the star-geocentric angular distance, the simulation analysis shows that the estimation precisions of position and velocity are improved by 29% and 25%.     

Frequency steering of spaceborne clocks based on XPNAV-1 observations

Due to high stable rotations, timing of pulsars provides a natural tool to correct the frequency deviation of spaceborne atomic clocks. Based on processing the observational data about a year of Crab pulsar given by XPNAV-1 satellite, we study the possibility of correcting the frequency deviation of spaceborne atomic clocks using pulsar timing. According to the observational data in X-ray band and the timing model parameters from radio observations, the pre-fit timing residuals with a level of 6...