Emergence of a Habitable Planet

We address the first several hundred million years of Earth’s history. The Moon-forming impact left Earth enveloped in a hot silicate atmosphere that cooled and condensed over ∼1,000 yrs. As it cooled the Earth degassed its volatiles into the atmosphere. It took another ∼2 Myrs for the magma ocean to freeze at the surface. The cooling rate was determined by atmospheric thermal blanketing. Tidal heating by the new Moon was a major energy source to the magma ocean. After the mantle solidified geothermal heat became climatologically insignificant, which allowed the steam atmosphere to condense, and left behind a ∼100 bar, ∼500 K CO₂ atmosphere. Thereafter cooling was governed by how quickly CO₂ was removed from the atmosphere. If subduction were efficient this could have taken as little as 10 million years. In this case the faint young Sun suggests that a lifeless Earth should have been cold and its oceans white with ice. But if carbonate subduction were inefficient the CO₂ would have mostly stayed in the atmosphere, which would have kept the surface near ∼500 K for many tens of millions of years. Hydrous minerals are harder to subduct than carbonates and there is a good chance that the Hadean mantle was dry. Hadean heat flow was locally high enough to ensure that any ice cover would have been thin (<5 m) in places. Moreover hundreds or thousands of asteroid impacts would have been big enough to melt the ice triggering brief impact summers. We suggest that plate tectonics as it works now was inadequate to handle typical Hadean heat flows of 0.2–0.5 W/m². In its place we hypothesize a convecting mantle capped by a ∼100 km deep basaltic mush that was relatively permeable to heat flow. Recycling and distillation of hydrous basalts produced granitic rocks very early, which is consistent with preserved >4 Ga detrital zircons. If carbonates in oceanic crust subducted as quickly as they formed, Earth could have been habitable as early as 10–20 Myrs after the Moon-forming impact.     

Generating requirements for complex embedded systems using State Analysis

It has become clear that spacecraft system complexity is reaching a threshold where customary methods of control are no longer affordable or sufficiently reliable. At the heart of this problem are the conventional approaches to systems and software engineering based on subsystem-level functional decomposition, which fail to scale in the tangled web of interactions typically encountered in complex spacecraft designs. Furthermore, there is a fundamental gap between the requirements on software specified by systems engineers and the implementation of these requirements by software engineers. Software engineers must perform the translation of requirements into software code, hoping to accurately capture the systems engineer's understanding of the system behavior, which is not always explicitly specified. This gap opens up the possibility for misinterpretation of the systems engineer's intent, potentially leading to software errors. This problem is addressed by a systems engineering methodology called State Analysis, which provides a process for capturing system and software requirements in the form of explicit models. This paper describes how requirements for complex aerospace systems can be developed using State Analysis, using representative spacecraft examples.     

On the dynamics of a novel manipulator with slewing and deployable links

Using a novel space platform-based manipulator with slewing and deployable links, the paper addresses two issues of considerable importance: (a) How important is it to model flexibility of the system? (b) How many modes are needed to adequately represent the elastic character? Results suggest that the fundamental mode is able to capture physics of the response quite accurately. Due to its massive character, the platform dynamics is virtually unaffected, even by severe maneuvers of the manipulator. Hence, treating the platform as rigid would save the computational cost without affecting the accuracy. Although the link flexibility does affect the manipulator's tip vibration, the joint and platform vibrations remain negligible. The revolute joint flexibility appears to be an important parameter affecting both the joint as well as tip responses. The information should prove useful in the design of this new class of manipulators.     

Optimum low-thrust limited power transfers between neighbouring elliptic non-equatorial orbits in a non-central gravity field

A complete first-order analytical solution is developed for the problem of optimum low-thrust limited power transfers between neighbouring elliptic non-equatorial orbits in a non-central gravity field. The optimization problem is formulated as a Mayer problem of optimal control with Cartesian elements as state variables. After applying the Pontryagin maximum principle and determining the optimal thrust acceleration, an intrinsic canonical transformation is performed: the Cartesian elements are changed by suitable orbital elements. Hori's method is applied in determining a first-order analytical solution. Simple analytical solutions are obtained explicitly for long-time transfers.     

Brazilian participation in the International Space Station (ISS) program: commitment or bargain struck?

The invitation to Brazil to join the International Space Station (ISS) program illustrates the way that foreign-policy makers in the USA favor short-term decisions over long-term commitments, while, in accepting the invitation, Brazil was also promoting other objectives. In taking the initiative to invite Brazil, President Clinton provided a unique opportunity to a middle-to-low-ranking spacefaring developing country to join the program as part of NASA's quota for the ISS. However, this action was the result of exchanges and bargains between the two countries, involving domestic and international interests on both sides—not all directly related to ISS activities—targeted at security and industrialization issues. These included the international non-proliferation regime, the commercialization of space systems and facilities (particularly Brazil's Alcantara Launch Center) and intellectual property.     

Modeling novel methodologies for unmanned aerial systems–Applications to the UAS-S4 Ehecatl and the UAS-S45 Bálaam

The rising demand for Unmanned Aerial Systems(UASs) to perform tasks in hostile environments has emphasized the need for their simulation models for the preliminary evaluations of their missions. The efficiency of the UAS model is directly related to its capacity to estimate its flight dynamics with minimum computational resources. The literature describes several techniques to estimate accurate aircraft flight dynamics. Most of them are based on system identification. This paper presents an alternative methodology to obtain complete model of the S4 and S45 unmanned aerial systems. The UAS-S4 and the UAS-S45 models were divided into four sub-models, each corresponding to a specific discipline: aerodynamics, propulsion, mass and inertia, and actuator. The‘‘aerodynamic" sub-model was built using the Fderivatives in-house code, which is an improvement of the classical DATCOM procedure. The ‘‘propulsion" sub-model was obtained by coupling a two-stroke engine model based on the ideal Otto cycle and a Blade Element Theory(BET) analysis of the propeller. The ‘‘mass and the inertia" sub-model was designed utilizing the Raymer and DATCOM methodologies. A sub-model of an actuator using servomotor characteristics was employed to complete the model. The total model was then checked by validation of each submodel with numerical and experimental data. The results indicate that the obtained model was accurate and could be used to design a flight simulator.     

Countermeasure Against Regenerative and Forced Chatter of Flexible Workpieces in Milling Processs Using Bi-directional Excitation

A novel extended methodology for chatter suppression in milling process by applying external forced vibrations to the workpiece in two orthogonal directions which are the feed and cross-feed directions.Both the regenerative and forced chatter suppression during the milling process of flexible workpieces are investigated.Here,the workpiece is subject to a sinusoidal periodic force in the feed direction to disrupt the regenerative effect.Additionally,to minimize the forced chatter,the workpiece is subject to the periodic excitation force in cross-feed direction.This force is proportional to the magnitude of the estimated cutting force in cross-feed direction and has a phase opposite to the cutting force to minimize the vibration amplitudes.The effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated numerically and experimentally,for the spindle speed located in both the local minima and local maxima of the stability lobe diagram.The numerical simulations indicate significant suppression effect in terms of vibration amplitudes,resulting in suppression of both the regenerative chatter and the forced chatter.Experiments were conducted by using a workpiece-mounted active stage composed of flexure hinges and driven by piezoelectric actuators.The experimental results agree qualitatively with the numerical simulations.The proposed method indicates a remarkable vibration reduction effect for both regenerative and forced chatters.     

Stochastic modelling considering ionospheric scintillation effects on GNSS relative and point positioning

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), in particular the Global Positioning System (GPS), have been widely used for high accuracy geodetic positioning. The Least Squares functional models related to the GNSS observables have been more extensively studied than the corresponding stochastic models, given that the development of the latter is significantly more complex. As a result, a simplified stochastic model is often used in GNSS positioning, which assumes that all the GNSS observables are statistically independent and of the same quality, i.e. a similar variance is assigned indiscriminately to all of the measurements. However, the definition of the stochastic model may be approached from a more detailed perspective, considering specific effects affecting each observable individually, as for example the effects of ionospheric scintillation. These effects relate to phase and amplitude fluctuations in the satellites signals that occur due to diffraction on electron density irregularities in the ionosphere and are particularly relevant at equatorial and high latitude regions, especially during periods of high solar activity. As a consequence, degraded measurement quality and poorer positioning accuracy may result.     

天基强银河背景下的空间碎片探测试验及分析

本文设计并完成了银河背景下碎片探测试验,数据分析表明,强的银河背景会降低探测器对暗弱碎片的探测能力,但对碎片的天文定位精度影响不大。本文验证了采用基于探测概率的极限探测星等方法表征探测器极限探测能力的合理性,以及基于仿真的方法增加数据完备度的可行性。本文的工作将为后续天基探测器的设计及探测试验的开展提供依据。     

Why Raman spectroscopy on Mars?--a case of the right tool for the right job

We provide a scientific rationale for the astrobiological investigation of Mars. We suggest that, given practical constraints, the most promising locations for the search for former life on Mars are palaeolake craters and the evaporite deposits that may reside within them. We suggest that Raman spectroscopy offers a promising tool for the detection of evidence of former (or extant) biota on Mars. In particular, we highlight the detection of hopanoids as long-lived bacterial cell wall products and photosynthetic pigments as the most promising targets. We further suggest that Raman spectroscopy as a fibre optic-based instrument lends itself to flexible planetary deployment.