Aerodynamic database development of the ESA intermediate experimental vehicle

This work deals with the aerodynamic database development of the Intermediate Experiment Vehicle.     

Survival of rock-colonizing organisms after 1.5 years in outer space

Cryptoendolithic microbial communities and epilithic lichens have been considered as appropriate candidates for the scenario of lithopanspermia, which proposes a natural interplanetary exchange of organisms by means of rocks that have been impact ejected from their planet of origin. So far, the hardiness of these terrestrial organisms in the severe and hostile conditions of space has not been tested over extended periods of time. A first long-term (1.5 years) exposure experiment in space was performed with a variety of rock-colonizing eukaryotic organisms at the International Space Station on board the European EXPOSE-E facility. Organisms were selected that are especially adapted to cope with the environmental extremes of their natural habitats. It was found that some-but not all-of those most robust microbial communities from extremely hostile regions on Earth are also partially resistant to the even more hostile environment of outer space, including high vacuum, temperature fluctuation, the full spectrum of extraterrestrial solar electromagnetic radiation, and cosmic ionizing radiation. Although the reported experimental period of 1.5 years in space is not comparable with the time spans of thousands or millions of years believed to be required for lithopanspermia, our data provide first evidence of the differential hardiness of cryptoendolithic communities in space.     

Validation of attitude/deformation sensing techniques for space flexible manipulators

This paper proposes an approach that makes use of two different techniques to sense and identify both the rigid attitude motion and the flexible dynamics of a manipulator. With the first technique, an accurate attitude motion determination, based on the use of a global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) signals, is performed. For this purpose, some antennas are placed on the manipulator in order to obtain the observable phase of the GNSS signal. The second technique, based on the use of accelerometer sensors, is used in order to identify the dynamic signature during the motion of the flexible link. Specifically, the modal parameters are estimated using data recorded from accelerometers, conveniently placed on the structure, by means of an output-only based approach. The developed algorithms used for both the attitude estimation and the output-only modal analysis are validated by experimental activities carried out on an in-house testbed representing a two flexible arm manipulator.