Excavation of artificial caverns inside asteroids by leveraging rotational self-energy

Future space ventures will likely require exploitation of near-Earth asteroid resources. Moreover, it can be envisaged that asteroids may host habitats in their interiors. In fact, a cavern inside an asteroid would be a natural radiation shield against cosmic radiation and may also serve as a confined environment for storage of mined material such as water ice or other processed volatiles such as propellants. To this end, this paper proposes to leverage the asteroid rotational self-energy to remove material from the asteroid interiors and create a spherical cavern, by means of the orbital siphon concept. The siphon is a chain of tether-connected payload masses (the asteroid material), which exploits the rotation of the asteroid for the delivery of mass from the asteroid to escape. Under certain conditions the siphon can be initiated to ensure self-sustained flow of mass from the asteroid to escape. A net orbital siphon effect is generated by connecting new payloads at the bottom of the chain while releasing the upper payloads. Key parameters are discussed, such as the required siphon dimension and the maximum size of the internal cavity that can be excavated, as a function of the asteroid rotational period. Moreover, assuming elastic material behaviour, a closed-form expression for the stress tensor is found and a failure criterion is used to identify regions in the asteroid interiors subjected to the larger stresses. It is shown that the conditions for failure are relaxed as the radius of the internal void increases.     

Orbital stability close to asteroid 624 Hektor using the polyhedral model

We investigate the orbital stability close to the unique L4-point Jupiter binary Trojan asteroid 624 Hektor. The gravitational potential of 624 Hektor is calculated using the polyhedron model with observational data of 2038 faces and 1021 vertexes. Previous studies have presented three different density values for 624 Hektor. The equilibrium points in the gravitational potential of 624 Hektor with different density values have been studied in detail. There are five equilibrium points in the gravitational potential of 624 Hektor no matter the density value. The positions, Jacobian, eigenvalues, topological cases, stability, as well as the Hessian matrix of the equilibrium points are investigated. For the three different density values the number, topological cases, and the stability of the equilibrium points with different density values are the same. However, the positions of the equilibrium points vary with the density value of the asteroid 624 Hektor. The outer equilibrium points move away from the asteroid’s mass center when the density increases, and the inner equilibrium point moves close to the asteroid’s mass center when the density increases. There exist unstable periodic orbits near the surface of 624 Hektor. We calculated an orbit near the primary’s equatorial plane of this binary Trojan asteroid; the results indicate that the orbit remains stable after 28.8375?d.     

Collision Risk Mitigation in Geostationary Orbit

The short- and long-term effects of spacecraft explosions, as a function of the end-of-life re-orbit altitude above the geostationary orbit (GEO), were analyzed in terms of their additional contribution to the debris flux in the GEO ring. The simulated debris clouds were propagated for 72yrs, taking into account all the relevant orbital perturbations.The results obtained show that 6–7 additional explosions in GEO would be sufficient, in the long term, to double the current collision risk with sizable objects in GEO. Unfortunately, even if spacecraft were to re-orbit between 300 and 500km above GEO, this would not significantly improve the situation. In fact, an altitude increase of at least 2000km would have to be adopted to reduce by one order of magnitude the long-term risk of collision among geostationary satellites and explosion fragments. The optimal debris mitigation strategy should be a compromise between the reliability and effectiveness of spacecraft end-of-life passivation, the re-orbit altitude and the acceptable debris background in the GEO ring. However, for as long as the re-orbit altitudes currently used are less than 500km above GEO, new spacecraft explosions must be avoided in order to preserve the geostationary environment over the long term.     

FY-1C/D极轨气象卫星及其在轨运行

简要说明了风云一号(FY-1)极轨气象卫星的总体情况。介绍了FY-1C星运行5年。D星运行2年后的测控、电源、热控、敖传、扫描辐射计和星载数据收集与分发(DCDS)分系统、有效载荷空间粒子成分监测器。以及姿控和星载计算机的在轨运行情况。在轨测试结果表明，两星的在轨运行、功能和性能符合任务书的要求。最后总结了长寿命高可靠稳定优质业务运行的FY-1C，D星的创新点、主要成绩，并给出了部分应用情况。     

Prompt effects of solar wind variations on the inner magnetosphere and midlatitude ionosphere

It is well known that the solar wind can significantly affect high-latitude ionospheric dynamics. However, the effects of the solar wind on the middle- and low-latitude ionosphere are much less studied. In this paper, we report observations that large perturbations in the middle- and low-latitude ionosphere are well correlated with solar wind variations. In one event, a significant (20–30%) decrease of the midlatitude ionospheric electron density over a large latitudinal range was related to a sudden drop in the solar wind pressure and a northward turning of the interplanetary magnetic field, and the density decrease became larger at lower latitudes. In another event, periodic perturbations in the dayside equatorial ionospheric E × B drift and electrojet were closely associated with variations in the interplanetary electric field. Since the solar wind is always changing with time, it can be a very important and common source of ionospheric perturbations at middle- and low-latitudes. The relationship between solar wind variations and significant ionospheric perturbations has important applications in space weather.     

远程导引可行飞行方案寻求算法研究

提出了一种寻求远程导引可行飞行方案的算法，能够满足远程导引对测控、日照、燃料和时间等各方面的要求；重点论述了Lambert一次变轨方案，给出了算法的具体步骤和主要模块的实现方法；最后给出了一个算例，说明算法是切实可行的。     

深空探测器定位在共线平动点附近的线性策略

深空探测器需要定位在日-地(月)系的共线平动点L1或L2附近执行探测任务,但由于共线平动点的不稳定性,必须在运行期间进行轨控。对于条件周期轨道(如晕轨道)必须在控制过程中考虑高次项,控制条件复杂,技术上实现相对困难。而某些探测任务,探测器定位在共线平动点附近的条件拟周期轨道(对应L issajous轨道)上亦可以。这种类型的轨道可以离共线平动点较近,那么只需要在控制过程中考虑线性项即可,控制条件简单。以圆型限制性三体问题作为基本模型,采用预估-校正法逼近线性化模型下的目标轨道,给出在轨运行期间的轨控策略亦是可取的,这种控制措施相对而言较简单,容易实现。仿真计算结果表明是可行的,能够提供较高的位置精度。     

关于大行星（或月球）轨道器的冻结轨道

关于人造地球卫星的冻结轨道问题早已为人们所熟知，而且已有相应的卫星在轨运行。在考虑该冻结轨道形成时，主要依据地球扁率J3项与J2项的相对关系，这是由地球非球形引力场的特征所决定的，原理十分清楚，但其原理和结论不能随意地用于其他大行星(或月球)的轨道器。在一般情况下，对于低轨卫星形成冻结轨道的条件，非球形引力位中的奇次带谐项(J21 1，l≥1)将起重要作用。不仅仅是一个J3项，例如月球轨道器，J3，J5，J7和J9均有不可忽视的影响，而且与轨道倾角有一定的关系。为此，本文根据轨道理论对冻结轨道的存在性及其有关问题作进一步的分析，给将来的深空探测提供轨道设计的有关信息和依据。     

空间任意形状凸面的轨道空间外热流计算方法

采用蒙特卡罗（ＭｏｎｔｅＣａｒｌｏ）方法，进行了平板、半球面、抛物面的地球反照角系数和地球红外角系数计算，通过与文献数据的比较，证明了由此方法所编程序的可靠性和实用性。利用这种方法，可以计算空间任意形状凸表面的轨道空间外热流。     

New multifrequency measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic background radiation

New measurements of the Cosmic Background Radiation temperature at 12 cm, 6.3 cm, 3 cm, 0.9 cm and 0.3 cm have made in July 1982 from the White Mountain High Altitude Research Station. The results are presented and the existence of spectral distortions discussed.