Engineering Papers⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Althouse, W. E.

Publications and source records attributed to Althouse, W. E..

A balloon-borne imaging gamma-ray telescope

A balloon-borne coded-aperture gamma-ray telescope for galactic and extragalactic astronomy observations is described. The instrument, called Gamma Ray Imaging Payload (GRIP), is designed for measurements in the energy range from 30 keV to 5 MeV with an angular resolution of 0.6 deg over a 20 deg field of view. Distinguishing characteristics of the telescope are a rotating hexagonal coded-aperture mask and a thick NaI scintillation camera. Rotating hexagonal coded-apertures and the development of thick scintillation cameras are discussed.

Althouse, W. E.↗

Balloon-borne video cassette recorders for digital data storage

A high speed, high capacity digital data storage system was developed for a new balloon-borne gamma-ray telescope. The system incorporates economical consumer products: the portable video cassette recorder (VCR) and a relatively newer item - the digital audio processor. The in-flight recording system employs eight VCRs and will provide a continuous data storage rate of 1.4 megabits/sec throughout a 40 hour balloon flight. Data storage capacity is 25 gigabytes and power consumption is only 10 watts.

Althouse, W. E.↗

A balloon-borne imaging gamma-ray telescope

A balloon-borne coded-aperture gamma-ray telescope for galactic and extragalactic astronomy observations is described. The instrument, called GRIP (Gamma Ray Imaging Payload), is designed for measurements in the energy range from 30 keV to 5 MeV with an angular resolution of 0.6 deg over a 20 deg field of view. Distinguishing characteristics of the telescope are a rotating hexagonal coded-aperture mask and a thick NaI scintillation camera. Rotating hexagonal coded-apertures and the development of thick scintillation cameras are discussed.

Althouse, W. E.↗

Balloon-borne video cassette recorders for digital data storage

A high-speed, high-capacity digital data storage system has been developed for a new balloon-borne gamma-ray telescope. The system incorporates sophisticated, yet easy to use and economical consumer products: the portable video cassette recorder (VCR) and a relatively newer item - the digital audio processor. The in-flight recording system employs eight VCRs and will provide a continuous data storage rate of 1.4 megabits/sec throughout a 40 hour balloon flight. Data storage capacity is 25 gigabytes and power consumption is only 10 watts.

Althouse, W. E.↗

The Voyager Cosmic Ray Experiment

The Voyager Cosmic Ray Experiment includes seven dE/dx-E telescopes to measure the energy and charge of particles with atomic numbers from 1 to 26 in the energy range 1-500 MeV/nucleon and to measure electron energy in the range from 3 to 110 MeV. Isotopic composition of hydrogen through sulfur in the range up to 75 Mev/nucleon can also be resolved. The electronic systems include a dual-gain, charge sensitive preamplifier, 4096-channel pulse height analyzers for three parameter analysis of selected events, and an event type readout polling scheme to maximize the use of available telemetry space and to enhance the occurrence of rare events in the data. Details of the detector, electronic and mechanical design are presented.

Stilwell, D. E.↗

A cosmic ray isotope spectrometer

The paper describes a new instrument to be flown on ISEE-C which is optimized to measure the isotopic composition of solar and galactic cosmic rays in the 5-250 MeV/nucleon range. A mass resolution of not greater than 0.3 AMU should be achieved for all elements with charge Z not exceeding 30.

Althouse, W. E.↗