Private property rights on asteroid resources: Assessing the legality of the ASTEROIDS Act

On June 10, 2014, a bill proposing to establish and protect (private) property rights on asteroid resources was introduced in the US House of Representatives.Regardless of its effective chances to become law, the presentation of the Bill raises numerous legal questions, particularly concerning the status of extraterrestrial natural resources and the consistency of what the Bill suggests with international space law.The purpose of the present viewpoint is to address and clarify the above questions.     

Design and operation of an anaerobic digester for waste management and fuel generation during long term lunar mission

Waste treatment and management for manned long term exploratory missions to moon will be a challenge due to longer mission duration. The present study investigated appropriate digester technologies that could be used on the base. The effect of stirring, operation temperature, organic loading rate and reactor design on the methane production rate and methane yield was studied. For the same duration of digestion, the unmixed digester produced 20–50% more methane than mixed system. Two-stage design which separated the soluble components from the solids and treated them separately had more rapid kinetics than one stage system, producing the target methane potential in one-half the retention time than the one stage system. The two stage system degraded 6% more solids than the single stage system. The two stage design formed the basis of a prototype digester sized for a four-person crew during one year exploratory lunar mission.     

基于可靠性分析的立方星网络维护架构优化

立方星编队或星座构成分布式空间传感器网络，可提高立方星执行复杂空间任务的能力。然而立方星易发生故障，其故障时间不确定性也导致了传感器网络性能的不稳定，这凸显了对立方星网络进行在轨维护的重要性。考虑立方星传感器网络的功能维持问题，描述了一种网络维护架构，通过定期发射、在轨备份立方星以及时更换故障立方星，从而提高网络对单星随机失效事件的快速响应与恢复能力。建立了该架构的运行成本模型，包括固定成本、储存成本和短缺成本。收集整理了真实的立方星寿命数据，并使用最大化拟合优度参数估计方法得到最优立方星寿命的随机模型。采用基于蒙特卡罗仿真的遗传算法优化备用立方星的补给时刻和补给数量，在备份成本与系统性能下降所带来的损失之间进行权衡，使得系统的综合收益最优。     

复杂通道类零件五轴加工刀轴规划

针对复杂通道类零件的五轴数控加工,提出一种控制刀轴稳定变化的刀轴规划方法。首先,通过对刀轴可行空间的均匀离散,建立一种高效求解刀轴可行空间精细边界的方法;然后,依据刀轴矢量规划准则,求解满足机床角加速度约束的可行刀轴序列集合,并提出一种切削行内旋转坐标线性变化的刀轴矢量规划方法;最后,通过建立刀轴变化和残留高度综合评价指标,得到优化的刀轴矢量,并与典型的商用软件进行了实验对比验证。结果表明,使用本文提出的刀轴规划方法得到的切削行刀位轨迹旋转坐标变化均匀,旋转轴角加速度最大值降低到商用软件的10%以下,残留高度平均值降低了22%,改善了切削过程的稳定性,提高了加工表面质量。     

广义轨道根数空间的轨道机动可达性

在由动量矩矢量和偏心率矢量定义的广义轨道根数度量空间内,研究了在初始轨道的任意点施加幅值固定的单脉冲后卫星的可达区域,包括脉冲施加的位置任意、方向固定和位置固定、方向任意2种情况,给出了广义轨道根数空间中轨道机动的可达性判据.通过比较脉冲作用前后的广义轨道根数,评估了单脉冲对广义轨道根数的影响,并且利用数值仿真分析了脉冲作用位置、方向与广义轨道根数空间中度量的关系.最后,在广义轨道根数空间中给出了轨道到轨道的机动策略,验证了广义轨道根数的可行性.     

空间引力波探测微牛电推进寿命评估研究现状

阐述了空间引力波探测任务中无拖曳控制技术对推进系统的特殊要求，介绍了目前主要的备选推进类型：冷气推进、离子电推进、会切型霍尔电推进、胶体电推进。针对面向空间引力波探测任务的电推进系统的寿命评估工作进行了任务分析，报告了目前微牛级电推进系统寿命试验研究现状，举例说明了目前主要应用的电推进装置寿命预测方式，包括半经验模型预测、数值模拟预测、基于数据驱动的预测以及系统层面的可靠性评估方法。对目前微牛级电推进系统的寿命评估研究现状进行总结，给出了发展思路。     

航天器外表面导电面积对朗缪尔探针科学探测的影响

朗缪尔探针的科学探测会受到航天器外表面导电面积与朗缪尔探针传感器有效面积之比大小的影响。如果航天器的外表面导电面积不足够大,朗缪尔探针以扫描电压模式工作时,就会造成航天器地电位的扰动,进而导致朗缪尔探针测量结果的偏差。分析了此问题的物理原理,并进行了相应的理论计算。子午工程探空火箭有效载荷朗缪尔探针在进行科学探测的同时,测量了火箭外表面导电面积与朗缪尔探针传感器有效面积之比不足造成的扰动,测量结果与理论分析基本一致。     

空间可展桁架结构等效动力学模型研究进展与展望

随着航天重大工程的逐步实施，桁架式空间可展结构正朝着大型化、轻量化和多功能等方向发展，该类桁架结构具有周期性、大柔度、构型复杂等特点。为满足大型空间结构的高精度、高可靠性要求，其动力学建模、非线性振动与振动控制等问题越来越复杂且难于处理。因此，大型空间可展结构的等效连续体建模成为研究热点。本文着重介绍大型空间可展桁架结构等效动力学建模的研究现状，综述了等效动力学建模的研究对象、方法及已取得的成果，提炼出等效动力学建模和与之相应的非线性振动与振动控制研究领域中亟待深入研究的关键科学问题。     

The performance of KSC Fixation Tubes with RNALater for orbital experiments: A case study in ISS operations for molecular biology

Molecular biology experiments on the International Space Station (ISS) continue to face challenges of sample harvesting and sample return to earth for post flight analysis; however, the use of Kennedy Space Center Fixation Tubes filled with RNALater has proven to be a robust solution to many of these challenges. While it is clear that one direction of future spaceflight experimentation may be towards enhanced on-orbit analytical capabilities, the rapid progress of earth-bound analytical capacity dictates that facile return of molecular biology samples from the ISS will continue to be a mainstay of space life sciences research and flight operations. In this paper we present a case study of the successful performance of KFTs and RNALater over a broad set of operational conditions of ascent configuration, on-orbit experiment use, on-orbit storage and sample return configurations that are unique to ISS current operations and constraints. We also provide observations on performance limits and discuss deployment opportunities and scenarios that are consistent with continued successful ISS molecular biology experimentation.     

Improving orbit prediction accuracy through supervised machine learning

Due to the lack of information such as the space environment condition and resident space objects’ (RSOs’) body characteristics, current orbit predictions that are solely grounded on physics-based models may fail to achieve required accuracy for collision avoidance and have led to satellite collisions already. This paper presents a methodology to predict RSOs’ trajectories with higher accuracy than that of the current methods. Inspired by the machine learning (ML) theory through which the models are learned based on large amounts of observed data and the prediction is conducted without explicitly modeling space objects and space environment, the proposed ML approach integrates physics-based orbit prediction algorithms with a learning-based process that focuses on reducing the prediction errors. Using a simulation-based space catalog environment as the test bed, the paper demonstrates three types of generalization capability for the proposed ML approach: (1) the ML model can be used to improve the same RSO’s orbit information that is not available during the learning process but shares the same time interval as the training data; (2) the ML model can be used to improve predictions of the same RSO at future epochs; and (3) the ML model based on a RSO can be applied to other RSOs that share some common features.