An Optimally Integrated Track Recovery System for Aerial Bathymetry

An airborne system has been developed for charting shallow coastal and inland waters. The primary components of this system are an aerial survey camera, a profiling laser radar, an analytical stereo plotter, and a multisensor track recovery system (TRS). The TRS comprises a gimbaled inertial navigation system and a number of auxiliary sensors which acquire redundant position and attitude information. The sensor data are combined postmission using a U-D factorized Kalman filter and modified Bryson-Frazier smoother to compute accurate estimates of the orientation parameters of the survey camera at the times of film exposure. These parameters are used to position each overlapping pair of photographs on the analytical plotter to form a stereo image and corresonding analytical stereomodel from which water depth measurements are made. Flight trial results demonstrate that the TRS can achieve radial position and attitude accuracies which exceed 1 m and 2 arcmin root mean square (rms), respectively, and that this level of performance is sufficient to enable water depth measurements to be made to an accuracy of better than 0.65 m (rms).     

The Evolving Sigmoid: Evidence for Magnetic Flux Ropes in the Corona Before, During, and After CMES

It is generally accepted that the energy that drives coronal mass ejections (CMEs) is magnetic in origin. Sheared and twisted coronal fields can store free magnetic energy which ultimately is released in the CME. We explore the possibility of the specific magnetic configuration of a magnetic flux rope of field lines that twist about an axial field line. The flux rope model predicts coronal observables, including heating along forward or inverse S-shaped, or sigmoid, topological surfaces. Therefore, studying the observed evolution of such sigmoids prior to, during, and after the CME gives us crucial insight into the physics of coronal storage and release of magnetic energy. In particular, we consider (1) soft-X-ray sigmoids, both transient and persistent; (2) The formation of a current sheet and cusp-shaped post-flare loops below the CME; (3) Reappearance of sigmoids after CMEs; (4) Partially erupting filaments; (5) Magnetic cloud observations of filament material.     

High resolution science with high redshift galaxies

We summarize the high-resolution science that has been done on high redshift galaxies with Adaptive Optics (AO) on the world’s largest ground-based facilities and with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). These facilities complement each other. Ground-based AO provides better light gathering power and in principle better resolution than HST, giving it the edge in high spatial resolution imaging and high resolution spectroscopy. HST produces higher quality, more stable PSF’s over larger field-of-views in a much darker sky-background than ground-based AO, and yields deeper wide-field images and low-resolution spectra than the ground. Faint galaxies have steadily decreasing sizes at fainter fluxes and higher redshifts, reflecting the hierarchical formation of galaxies over cosmic time. HST has imaged this process in great structural detail to z  6, and ground-based AO and spectroscopy has provided measurements of their masses and other physical properties with cosmic time. Last, we review how the 6.5 m James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will measure First Light, reionization, and galaxy assembly in the near–mid-IR after 2013.     

Europe — towards a new long-term programme

The European response to the US invitation to participate in the space station programme will determine the long-term future of the European space industry. The European Space Agency is charged with replying to the invitation, which will be one of the items on the agenda of the first ministerial meeting of the Council in early 1985. All going well, by the end of 1985 Europe will have developed a new long-term strategy towards space which will include substantial collaboration with the USA.     

Constraints on Coronal Outflow Velocities Derived from UVCS Doppler Dimming Measurements and in-Situ Charge State Data

We constrain coronal outflow velocity solutions, resolved along the line-of-sight, by using Doppler dimming models of H I Lyman alpha and O VI 1032/1037 Å emissivities obtained with data from the Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) on SOHO. The local emissivities, from heliocentric heights of 1.5 to 3.0 solar radii, were determined from 3-D reconstructions of line-of-sight intensities obtained during the first Whole Sun Month Campaign (10 August to 8 September 1996). The models use electron densities derived from polarized brightness measurements made with the visible light coronagraphs on UVCS and LASCO, supplemented with data from Mark III at NCAR/MLSO. Electron temperature profiles are derived from 'freezing-in' temperatures obtained from an analysis of charge state data from SWICS/Ulysses. The work concentrates on neutral hydrogen outflow velocities which depend on modeling the absolute coronal H I Lyα emissivities. We use an iterative method to determine the neutral hydrogen outflow velocity with consistent values for the electron temperatures derived from a freezing-in model.     

RPC-IES: The Ion and Electron Sensor of the Rosetta Plasma Consortium

The ion and electron sensor (IES) is part of the Rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC). The IES consists of two electrostatic plasma analyzers, one each for ions and electrons, which share a common entrance aperture. Each analyzer covers an energy/charge range from 1 eV/e to 22 keV/e with a resolution of 4%. Electrostatic deflection is used at the entrance aperture to achieve a field of view of 90°× 360° (2.8π sr). Angular resolution is 5°× 22.5° for electrons and 5°× 45° for ions with the sector containing the solar wind being further segmented to 5°× 5°. The three-dimensional plasma distributions obtained by IES will be used to investigate the interaction of the solar wind with asteroids Steins and Lutetia and the coma and nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (CG). In addition, photoelectron spectra obtained at these bodies will help determine their composition.     

Microcomputer applications in space-borne instruments

Although microprocessors have been available for over 10 years, they were not used extensively in the space science community for a variety of technical and management reasons until the mid 1970's. The recent applications of microprocessors to space experiments at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) are presented. Closing comments discuss some of the lessons learned from these applications.     

Source Region of High and Low Speed Wind during the Spartan 201-05 Flight

The large-scale coronal magnetic fields of the Sun are believed to play an important role in organizing the coronal plasma and channeling the high and low speed solar wind along the open magnetic field lines of the polar coronal holes and the rapidly diverging field lines close to the current sheet regions, as has been observed by the instruments aboard the Ulysses spacecraft from March 1992 to March 1997. We have performed a study of this phenomena within the framework of a semi-empirical model of the coronal expansion and solar wind using Spartan, SOHO, and Ulysses observations during the quiescent phase of the solar cycle. Key to this understanding is the demonstration that the white light coronagraph data can be used to trace out the topology of the coronal magnetic field and then using the Ulysses data to fix the strength of the surface magnetic field of the Sun. As a consequence, it is possible to utilize this semi-empirical model with remote sensing observation of the shape and density of the solar corona and in situ data of magnetic field and mass flux to predict values of the solar wind at all latitudes through out the solar system. We have applied this technique to the observations of Spartan 201-05 on 1–2 November, 1998, SOHO and Ulysses during the rising phase of this solar cycle and speculate on what solar wind velocities Ulysses will observe during its polar passes over the south and the north poles during September of 2000 and 2001. In order to do this the model has been generalized to include multiple streamer belts and co-located current sheets. The model shows some interesting new results. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Adaptive Detection Probabilities for Fluctuating Target Models in Nonhomogeneous Gaussian Noise

Under the assumption that the average noise power may vary from cell to cell, new, more easily computed expressions are given for the probability of detecting a fluctuating target by means of a cell-averaging CFAR test. The generalized chi-square family of fluctuating targets is considered with the Swerling I and III models given as special cases.