Potential Effects of Surface Temperature Variations and Disturbances and Thermal Convection on the Mars InSight HP<Superscript>3</Superscript> Heat-Flow Determination

The HP³ instrument on the InSight lander mission will measure subsurface temperatures and thermal conductivities from which heat flow in the upper few meters of the regolith at the landing site will be calculated. The parameter to be determined is steady-state conductive heat flow, but temperatures may have transient perturbations resulting from surface temperature changes and there could be a component of thermal convection associated with heat transport by vertical flow of atmospheric gases over the depth interval of measurement. The experiment is designed so that it should penetrate to a depth below which surface temperature perturbations are smaller than the required measurement precision by the time the measurements are made. However, if the measurements are delayed after landing, and/or the probe does not penetrate to the desired depth, corrections may be necessary for the transient perturbations. Thermal convection is calculated to be negligible, but these calculations are based on unknown physical properties of the Mars regolith. The effects of thermal convection should be apparent at shallow depths where transient thermal perturbations would be observed to deviate from conductive theory. These calculations were required during proposal review and their probability of predicting a successful measurement a prerequisite for mission approval. However, their uncertainties lies in unmeasured physical parameters of the Mars regolith.     

Cockpits for 2010 and Beyond

Truly optimal weapon system performance is highly dependent on the level of man-machine cockpit integration resulting from the intelligent application of crew station technologies. Future cockpits will incorporate a wide range of enhancements. Heavy application of artificial intelligence techniques can be expected to encompass the entire spectrum of crew station technologies; from data fusion, to optimized display resource management, to real-time onboard maintenance and fault reporting, and even to the optimization of pilot physiological needs. Emphasis on exploiting applications of the ultimate human resource, the mind, can be expected through the use of biocybernetics; initially to control previously manual and/or automated cockpit functions, and eventually to allow bidirectional communications. Future enhancements can also be expected to improve aircrew performance by allowing the pilot to take full advantage of aircraft maneuvering capability, and to operate effectively in hostile chemical, biological and radiological environments. New high resolution, full color, three dimensional crew station display devices will complement enlarged sensor suites and enhance aircrew situational awareness. Does the pilot really need to see the outside world to fly and fight effectively? Or, can panoramic display techniques, in an encapsulated environment, coupled with 4? steradian sensor coverage, increase performance? This paper strives to illustrate some ``no holds barred' approaches to making future fighter cockpits an ``in-tune' extension of the operator, based on current and projected tactical needs.     

Software Maintenance Criteria for Small Microprocessor-Based Systems

Criteria is provided for designing and implementing small microprocessor-based programs with the objective of enhancing their maintainability properties. Since microprocessor-based programs typically have relatively short schedules and low budgets. it is necessary to adapt maintainability enhancing practices for these projects in such a manner that their impact in these critical areas is not excessive. Since many of the practices which can be used to enhance maintainability actually coincide with those which improve productivity during software development, application of those practices should incur little or no added cost or duration to a microprocessor-based program. This paper suggests practical steps which can be applied to the software design and implementation activities, to the software documentation, and to the development environment which will enhance the maintainability of the resultant computer programs.     

ASTROSAT

The ASTROSAT satellite is an Indian National Space Observatory under development in India. Due for launch in 2010, ASTROSAT will carry a complement of five scientific instruments enabling simultaneous observations from the optical through to the hard X-ray energy band. This capability will enable broad-band spectroscopy and high time-resolution monitoring of both galactic and extra-galactic targets, such as X-ray binaries and AGN. One of the instruments is being built in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency and another in collaboration with the University of Leicester. ASTROSAT also carries a scanning sky monitor to observe the variable X-ray sky. After an initial period of science verification and guaranteed time, a certain fraction of ASTROSAT observing time will also be made available to the community via a call for proposals. Here I summarise the instrument complement and principle scientific objectives of the mission.     

Charge exchange lifetimes for ring current ions

In applying the charge exchange mechanism to ion phenomena within the Earth's magnetosphere it is critical to the proper interpretation of observations that the charge exchange lifetimes for the ions be known as accurately as possible. Various new results have been published which significantly modify the charge exchange lifetimes which have been used in space physics research during the past decade and a half. Some of the newer results have been used in the application of the charge exchange decay mechanism but the use has been limited and for the most part incomplete. The neutral hydrogen density distribution now yields lifetimes which are shorter than previously calculated, while the functional dependence of the lifetimes on pitch angle provides for slower decay for ions mirroring off the geomagnetic equator. This review coalesces and summarizes the latest and best measurements of the physical quantities involved in the complete calculation of the charge exchange lifetime of the mirroring magnetospheric ions.     

Enacting Japan's Basic Law for space activities: Revolution or evolution?

In June 2012, four whole years after the Basic Space Law mandated a fundamental reorientation of Japan's space policy objectives towards applications, including national security and the use of space as a diplomatic tool, legislation was passed by Japan's Diet that alters who controls Japan's space policy. The new legislation involves a curious compromise between competing aims and objectives of different parts of Japan's central bureaucracy. But it also clearly represents a break from the past and potentially a decisive step toward new directions for Japan's governmental space efforts. Contextualizing the deeper and immediate background, this article seeks to elucidate just how deep, or indeed shallow, some of the forthcoming changes are.