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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2007

Rapid Analysis of Mass Distribution of Radiation Shielding

Radiation Shielding Evaluation Toolset (RADSET) is a computer program that rapidly calculates the spatial distribution of mass of an arbitrary structure for use in ray-tracing analysis of the radiation-shielding properties of the structure. RADSET was written to be used in conjunction with unmodified commercial computer-aided design (CAD) software that provides access to data on the structure and generates selected three-dimensional-appearing views of the structure. RADSET obtains raw geometric, material, and mass data on the structure from the CAD software. From these data, RADSET calculates the distribution(s) of the masses of specific materials about any user-specified point(s). The results of these mass-distribution calculations are imported back into the CAD computing environment, wherein the radiation-shielding calculations are performed.

Zapp, Edward↗
NASA NTRS2010

Effect of Anatomical Modeling on Space Radiation Dose Estimates: A Comparison of Doses for NASA Phantoms and 5th, 50th, and 95th Percentile UF Hybrid Phantoms

The estimate of absorbed dose to individual organs of a space crewmember is affected by the geometry of the anatomical model of the astronaut used in the radiation transport calculation. For astronaut dosimetry, NASA currently uses the computerized anatomical male (CAM) and computerized anatomical female (CAF) stylized phantoms to represent astronauts in its operational radiation dose analyses. These phantoms are available in one size and in two body positions. In contrast, the UF Hybrid Adult Male and Female (UFHADM and UFHADF) phantoms have organ shapes based on actual CT data. The surfaces of these phantoms are defined by non-uniform rational B-spline surfaces, and are thus flexible in terms of body morphometry and extremity positioning. In this study, UFHADM and UFHADF are scaled to dimensions corresponding to 5th, 50th, and 95th percentile (PCTL) male and female astronauts. A ray-tracing program is written in Visual Basic 2008, which is then used to create areal density maps for dose points corresponding to various organs within the phantoms. The areal density maps, along with appropriate space radiation spectra, are input into the NASA program couplet HZETRN/BRYNTRN, and organ doses are calculated. The areal density maps selected tissues and organs of the 5th, 50th, and 95th PCTL male and female phantoms are presented and compared. In addition, the organ doses for the 5th, 50th, and 95th PCTL male and female phantoms are presented and compared to organ doses for CAM and CAF.

Bahadori, A.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Gravity Waves and Mesospheric Clouds in the Summer Middle Atmosphere: A Comparison of Lidar Measurements and Ray Modeling of Gravity Waves Over Sondrestrom, Greenland

We conducted gravity wave ray-tracing experiments within an atmospheric region centered near the ARCLITE lidar system at Sondrestrom, Greenland (67N, 310 deg E), in efforts to understand lidar observations of both upper stratospheric gravity wave activity and mesospheric clouds during August 1996 and the summer of 2001. The ray model was used to trace gravity waves through realistic three-dimensional daily-varying background atmospheres in the region, based on forecasts and analyses in the troposphere and stratosphere and climatologies higher up. Reverse ray tracing based on upper stratospheric lidar observations at Sondrestrom was also used to try to objectively identify wave source regions in the troposphere. A source spectrum specified by reverse ray tracing experiments in early August 1996 (when atmospheric flow patterns produced enhanced transmission of waves into the upper stratosphere) yielded model results throughout the remainder of August 1996 that agreed best with the lidar observations. The model also simulated increased vertical group propagation of waves between 40 km and 80 km due to intensifying mean easterlies, which allowed many of the gravity waves observed at 40 km over Sondrestrom to propagate quasi-vertically from 40-80 km and then interact with any mesospheric clouds at 80 km near Sondrestrom, supporting earlier experimentally-inferred correlations between upper stratospheric gravity wave activity and mesospheric cloud backscatter from Sondrestrom lidar observations. A pilot experiment of real-time runs with the model in 2001 using weather forecast data as a low-level background produced less agreement with lidar observations. We believe this is due to limitations in our specified tropospheric source spectrum, the use of climatological winds and temperatures in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere, and missing lidar data from important time periods.

LIDAR (LIGHT DETECTION AND RANGING)↗
NASA NTRS2003

Predicting and Managing Lighting and Visibility for Human Operations in Space

Lighting is critical to human visual performance. On earth this problem is well understood and solutions are well defined and executed. Because the sun rises and sets on average every 45 minutes during Earth orbit, humans working in space must cope with ~ extremely dynamic lighting conditions varying from very low light conditions to severe glare and contrast conditions. For critical operations, it is essential that lighting conditions be predictable and manageable. Mission planners need to detelmine whether low-light video cameras are required or whether additional luminaires, or lamps, need to be flown . Crew and flight directors need to have up to date daylight orbit time lines showing the best and worst viewing conditions for sunlight and shadowing. Where applicable and possible, lighting conditions need to be part of crew training. In addition, it is desirable to optimize the quantity and quality of light because of the potential impacts on crew safety, delivery costs, electrical power and equipment maintainability for both exterior and interior conditions. Addressing these issues, an illumination modeling system has been developed in the Space Human Factors Laboratory at ASA Johnson Space Center. The system is the integration of a physically based ray-tracing package ("Radiance"), developed at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, a human factors oriented geometric modeling system developed by NASA and an extensive database of humans and their work environments. Measured and published data has been collected for exterior and interior surface reflectivity; luminaire beam spread distribution, color and intensity and video camera light sensitivity and has been associated with their corresponding geometric models. Selecting an eye-point and one or more light sources, including sun and earthshine, a ~ snapshot of the light energy reaching the surfaces or reaching the eye point is computed. This energy map is then used to extract the required information needed for useful predictions. Using a validated, comprehensive illumination model integrated with empirically derived data, predictions of lighting and viewing conditions have been successfully used for Shuttle and Space Station planning and assembly operations. It has successfully balanced the needs for adequate human performance with the utili zation of resources. Keywords: Modeling, ray tracing, luminaires, refl ectivity, luminance, illuminance.

Maida, James C.↗
NASA NTRS2011

A Deterministic Electron, Photon, Proton and Heavy Ion Radiation Transport Suite for the Study of the Jovian System

A deterministic suite of radiation transport codes, developed at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), which describe the transport of electrons, photons, protons, and heavy ions in condensed media is used to simulate exposures from spectral distributions typical of electrons, protons and carbon-oxygen-sulfur (C-O-S) trapped heavy ions in the Jovian radiation environment. The particle transport suite consists of a coupled electron and photon deterministic transport algorithm (CEPTRN) and a coupled light particle and heavy ion deterministic transport algorithm (HZETRN). The primary purpose for the development of the transport suite is to provide a means for the spacecraft design community to rapidly perform numerous repetitive calculations essential for electron, proton and heavy ion radiation exposure assessments in complex space structures. In this paper, the radiation environment of the Galilean satellite Europa is used as a representative boundary condition to show the capabilities of the transport suite. While the transport suite can directly access the output electron spectra of the Jovian environment as generated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Galileo Interim Radiation Electron (GIRE) model of 2003; for the sake of relevance to the upcoming Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM), the 105 days at Europa mission fluence energy spectra provided by JPL is used to produce the corresponding dose-depth curve in silicon behind an aluminum shield of 100 mils ( 0.7 g/sq cm). The transport suite can also accept ray-traced thickness files from a computer-aided design (CAD) package and calculate the total ionizing dose (TID) at a specific target point. In that regard, using a low-fidelity CAD model of the Galileo probe, the transport suite was verified by comparing with Monte Carlo (MC) simulations for orbits JOI--J35 of the Galileo extended mission (1996-2001). For the upcoming EJSM mission with a potential launch date of 2020, the transport suite is used to compute the traditional aluminum-silicon dose-depth calculation as a standard shield-target combination output, as well as the shielding response of high charge (Z) shields such as tantalum (Ta). Finally, a shield optimization algorithm is used to guide the instrument designer with the choice of graded-Z shield analysis.

Norman, Ryan B.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Prospects for UT1 Measurements from VLBI Intensive Sessions

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Intensives are one-hour single baseline sessions to provide Universal Time (UT1) in near real-time up to a delay of three days if a site is not e-transferring the observational data. Due to the importance of UT1 estimates for the prediction of Earth orientation parameters, as well as any kind of navigation on Earth or in space, there is not only the need to improve the timeliness of the results but also their accuracy. We identify the asymmetry of the tropospheric delays as the major error source, and we provide two strategies to improve the results, in particular of those Intensives which include the station Tsukuba in Japan with its large tropospheric variation. We find an improvement when (1) using ray-traced delays from a numerical weather model, and (2) when estimating tropospheric gradients within the analysis of Intensive sessions. The improvement is shown in terms of reduction of rms of length-of-day estimates w.r.t. those derived from Global Positioning System observations

Boehm, Johannes↗
NASA NTRS2011

General Tool for Evaluating High-Contrast Coronagraphic Telescope Performance Error Budgets

The Coronagraph Performance Error Budget (CPEB) tool automates many of the key steps required to evaluate the scattered starlight contrast in the dark hole of a space-based coronagraph. The tool uses a Code V prescription of the optical train, and uses MATLAB programs to call ray-trace code that generates linear beam-walk and aberration sensitivity matrices for motions of the optical elements and line-of-sight pointing, with and without controlled fine-steering mirrors (FSMs). The sensitivity matrices are imported by macros into Excel 2007, where the error budget is evaluated. The user specifies the particular optics of interest, and chooses the quality of each optic from a predefined set of PSDs. The spreadsheet creates a nominal set of thermal and jitter motions, and combines that with the sensitivity matrices to generate an error budget for the system. CPEB also contains a combination of form and ActiveX controls with Visual Basic for Applications code to allow for user interaction in which the user can perform trade studies such as changing engineering requirements, and identifying and isolating stringent requirements. It contains summary tables and graphics that can be instantly used for reporting results in view graphs. The entire process to obtain a coronagraphic telescope performance error budget has been automated into three stages: conversion of optical prescription from Zemax or Code V to MACOS (in-house optical modeling and analysis tool), a linear models process, and an error budget tool process. The first process was improved by developing a MATLAB package based on the Class Constructor Method with a number of user-defined functions that allow the user to modify the MACOS optical prescription. The second process was modified by creating a MATLAB package that contains user-defined functions that automate the process. The user interfaces with the process by utilizing an initialization file where the user defines the parameters of the linear model computations. Other than this, the process is fully automated. The third process was developed based on the Terrestrial Planet Finder coronagraph Error Budget Tool, but was fully automated by using VBA code, form, and ActiveX controls.

Marchen, Luis F.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Measuring Low-Order Aberrations in a Segmented Telescope

The in-focus PSF optimizer (IPO) is an algorithm for use in monitoring and controlling the alignment of the segments of a segmented-mirror astronomical telescope. IPO is so named because it computes wave-front aberrations of the telescope from digitized pointspread functions (PSFs) measured in infocus images. Inasmuch as distant astronomical objects that behave optically as point sources can typically be seen in almost any astronomical image, the main benefit afforded by IPO may be to enable maintenance of mirror-segment alignments without detracting from valuable scientific-observation time. IPO evolved from prescription-retrieval type algorithms. Prescription retrieval uses in-focus and out-of-focus PSFs to infer the state of an imaging optical system. The state, in this context, refers to the positions, orientations, and low-order figure errors of the optical elements in the system. Both prescription- retrieval and IPO use an iterative, nonlinear, least-squares optimizer to compute the optimal state parameters such that a digital computer-generated model image matches the digitized image acquired from the real system. The difference between IPO and prescription- retrieval algorithms is that IPO is specifically designed to utilize infocus images only. Although the restriction to in-focus images limits IPO to calculating only the lowest-order wave front aberrations, it also causes the resulting computation to take much less time because fewer degrees of freedom are included in the optimization process. In the prescription retrieval software developed at JPL, the model images are generated using the ray-trace/physical optics program, MACOS. IPO, on the other hand, uses a linear sensitivity matrix to compute the exit-pupil wave front from the system parameters; the wave front is then converted into a complex pupil field, which is then propagated to the image plane via a fast Fourier transform. This approach is computationally faster and requires less computer memory than is needed for prescription retrieval.

Ohara, Catherine↗
NASA NTRS2012

Thermal Stability of Frozen Volatiles in the North Polar Region of Mercury

Earth-based radar observations have revealed the presence on Mercury of anomalously bright, depolarizing features that appear to be localized in the permanently shadowed regions of high-latitude impact craters [1]. Observations of similar radar signatures over a range of radar wavelengths implies that they correspond to deposits that are highly transparent at radar wavelengths and extend to depths of several meters below the surface [1]. Thermal models using idealized crater topographic profiles have predicted the thermal stability of surface and subsurface water ice at these same latitudes [2]. One of the major goals of the MESSENGER mission is to characterize the nature of radar-bright craters and presumed associated frozen volatile deposits at the poles of Mercury through complementary orbital observations by a suite of instruments [3]. Here we report on an examination of the thermal stability of water ice and other frozen volatiles in the north polar region of Mercury using topographic profiles obtained by the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) instrument [4] in conjunction with a three-dimensional ray-tracing thermal model previously used to study the thermal environment of polar craters on the Moon [5].

Paige, David A.↗
NASA NTRS2012

A Framework for Simulation of Aircraft Flyover Noise Through a Non-Standard Atmosphere

This paper describes a new framework for the simulation of aircraft flyover noise through a non-standard atmosphere. Central to the framework is a ray-tracing algorithm which defines multiple curved propagation paths, if the atmosphere allows, between the moving source and listener. Because each path has a different emission angle, synthesis of the sound at the source must be performed independently for each path. The time delay, spreading loss and absorption (ground and atmosphere) are integrated along each path, and applied to each synthesized aircraft noise source to simulate a flyover. A final step assigns each resulting signal to its corresponding receiver angle for the simulation of a flyover in a virtual reality environment. Spectrograms of the results from a straight path and a curved path modeling assumption are shown. When the aircraft is at close range, the straight path results are valid. Differences appear especially when the source is relatively far away at shallow elevation angles. These differences, however, are not significant in common sound metrics. While the framework used in this work performs off-line processing, it is conducive to real-time implementation.

Arntzen, Michael↗
NASA NTRS2012

Telescope Alignment From Sparsely Sampled Wavefront Measurements Over Pupil Subapertures

Alignment of two-element telescopes is a classic problem. During recent integration and test of the Space Interferometry Mission s (SIM s) Astrometric Beam Combiner (ABC), the innovators were faced with aligning two such telescope subsystems in the presence of a further complication: only two small subapertures in each telescope s pupil were accessible for measuring the wavefront with a Fizeau interferometer. This meant that the familiar aberrations that might be interpreted to infer system misalignments could be viewed only over small sub-regions of the pupil, making them hard to recognize. Further, there was no contiguous surface of the pupil connecting these two subapertures, so relative phase piston information was lost; the underlying full-aperture aberrations therefore had an additional degree of ambiguity. The solution presented here is to recognize that, in the absence of phase piston, the Zygo measurements primarily provide phase tilt in the subaperture windows of interest. Because these windows are small and situated far from the center of the (inaccessible) unobscured full aperture, any aberrations that are higher-order than tilt will be extremely high-order on the full aperture, and so not necessary or helpful to the alignment. Knowledge of the telescope s optical prescription allows straightforward evaluation of sensitivities (subap mode strength per unit full-aperture aberration), and these can be used in a predictive matrix approach to move with assurance to an aligned state. The technique is novel in every operational way compared to the standard approach of alignment based on full-aperture aberrations or searching for best rms wavefront. This approach is closely grounded in the observable quantities most appropriate to the problem. It is also more intuitive than inverting full phase maps (or subaperture Zernike spectra) with a ray-tracing program, which must certainly work in principle, but in practice met with limited success. Even if such classical alignment techniques became practical, the techniques reported here form a reassuringly transparent and intuitive check on the course of the alignment with very little computational effort.

Bloemhof, Eric E.↗
NASA NTRS2012

GERMcode: A Stochastic Model for Space Radiation Risk Assessment

A new computer model, the GCR Event-based Risk Model code (GERMcode), was developed to describe biophysical events from high-energy protons and high charge and energy (HZE) particles that have been studied at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) for the purpose of simulating space radiation biological effects. In the GERMcode, the biophysical description of the passage of HZE particles in tissue and shielding materials is made with a stochastic approach that includes both particle track structure and nuclear interactions. The GERMcode accounts for the major nuclear interaction processes of importance for describing heavy ion beams, including nuclear fragmentation, elastic scattering, and knockout-cascade processes by using the quantum multiple scattering fragmentation (QMSFRG) model. The QMSFRG model has been shown to be in excellent agreement with available experimental data for nuclear fragmentation cross sections. For NSRL applications, the GERMcode evaluates a set of biophysical properties, such as the Poisson distribution of particles or delta-ray hits for a given cellular area and particle dose, the radial dose on tissue, and the frequency distribution of energy deposition in a DNA volume. By utilizing the ProE/Fishbowl ray-tracing analysis, the GERMcode will be used as a bi-directional radiation transport model for future spacecraft shielding analysis in support of Mars mission risk assessments. Recent radiobiological experiments suggest the need for new approaches to risk assessment that include time-dependent biological events due to the signaling times for activation and relaxation of biological processes in cells and tissue. Thus, the tracking of the temporal and spatial distribution of events in tissue is a major goal of the GERMcode in support of the simulation of biological processes important in GCR risk assessments. In order to validate our approach, basic radiobiological responses such as cell survival curves, mutation, chromosomal aberrations, and representative mouse tumor induction curves are implemented into the GERMcode. Extension of these descriptions to other endpoints related to non-targeted effects and biochemical pathway responses will be discussed.

Kim, Myung-Hee Y.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Space Radiation Analysis for the Mark III Spacesuit

NASA has continued the development of space systems by applying and integrating improved technologies that include safety issues, lightweight materials, and electronics. One such area is extravehicular (EVA) spacesuit development with the most recent Mark III spacesuit. In this paper the Mark III spacesuit is discussed in detail that includes the various components that comprise the spacesuit, materials and their chemical composition that make up the spacesuit, and a discussion of the 3-D CAD model of the Mark III spacesuit. In addition, the male (CAM) and female (CAF) computerized anatomical models are also discussed in detail. We combined the spacesuit and the human models, that is, we developed a method of incorporating the human models in the Mark III spacesuit and performed a ray-tracing technique to determine the space radiation shielding distributions for all of the critical body organs. These body organ shielding distributions include the BFO (Blood-Forming Organs), skin, eye, lungs, stomach, and colon, to name a few, for both the male and female. Using models of the trapped (Van Allen) proton and electron environments, radiation exposures were computed for a typical low earth orbit (LEO) EVA mission scenario including the geostationary (GEO) high electron environment. A radiation exposure assessment of these mission scenarios is made to determine whether or not the crew radiation exposure limits are satisfied, and if not, the additional shielding material that would be required to satisfy the crew limits.

Atwell, Bill↗
NASA NTRS2012

Holodeck: Telepresence Dome Visualization System Simulations

This paper explores the simulation and consideration of different image-projection strategies for the Holodeck, a dome that will be used for highly immersive telepresence operations in future endeavors of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Its visualization system will include a full 360 degree projection onto the dome's interior walls in order to display video streams from both simulations and recorded video. Because humans innately trust their vision to precisely report their surroundings, the Holodeck's visualization system is crucial to its realism. This system will be rigged with an integrated hardware and software infrastructure-namely, a system of projectors that will relay with a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and computer to both project images onto the dome and correct warping in those projections in real-time. Using both Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and ray-tracing software, virtual models of various dome/projector geometries were created and simulated via tracking and analysis of virtual light sources, leading to the selection of two possible configurations for installation. Research into image warping and the generation of dome-ready video content was also conducted, including generation of fisheye images, distortion correction, and the generation of a reliable content-generation pipeline.

Hite, Nicolas↗
NASA NTRS2014

Features of Afterbody Radiative Heating for Earth Entry

Radiative heating is identified as a major contributor to afterbody heating for Earth entry capsules at velocities above 10 km/s. Because of rate-limited electron-ion recombination processes, a large fraction of the electronically-excited N and O atoms produced in the high temperature/pressure forebody remain as they expand into the afterbody region, which results in significant afterbody radiation. Large radiative heating sensitivities to electron-impact ionization rates and escape factors are identified. Ablation products from a forebody ablator are shown to increase the afterbody radiation by as much as 40%. The tangent-slab radiation transport approach is shown to over-predict the radiative flux by as much as 40% in the afterbody, therefore making the more computationally expensive ray-tracing approach necessary for accurate radiative flux predictions. For the Stardust entry, the afterbody radiation is predicted to be nearly twice as large as the convective heating during the peak heating phase of the trajectory. Comparisons between simulations and the Stardust Echelle observation measurements, which are shown to be dominated by afterbody emission, indicate agreement within 20% for various N and O lines. Similarly, calorimeter measurements from the Fire II experiment are identified as a source of validation data for afterbody radiation. For the afterbody calorimeter measurement closest to the forebody, which experiences the largest afterbody radiative heating component, the convective heating alone is shown to under-predict the measurement, even for the fullycatalytic assumption. Agreement with the measurements is improved with the addition of afterbody radiation. These comparisons with Stardust and Fire II measurements provide validation that the significant afterbody radiation values proposed in this work are legitimate.

Johnston, Christopher O.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Investigation of Primary Mirror Segment's Residual Errors for the Thirty Meter Telescope

The primary mirror segment aberrations after shape corrections with warping harness have been identified as the single largest error term in the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) image quality error budget. In order to better understand the likely errors and how they will impact the telescope performance we have performed detailed simulations. We first generated unwarped primary mirror segment surface shapes that met TMT specifications. Then we used the predicted warping harness influence functions and a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor model to determine estimates for the 492 corrected segment surfaces that make up the TMT primary mirror. Surface and control parameters, as well as the number of subapertures were varied to explore the parameter space. The corrected segment shapes were then passed to an optical TMT model built using the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) developed Modeling and Analysis for Controlled Optical Systems (MACOS) ray-trace simulator. The generated exit pupil wavefront error maps provided RMS wavefront error and image-plane characteristics like the Normalized Point Source Sensitivity (PSSN). The results have been used to optimize the segment shape correction and wavefront sensor designs as well as provide input to the TMT systems engineering error budgets.

warping harness↗
NASA NTRS2009

A General Tool for Evaluating High-Contrast Coronagraphic Telescope Performance Error Budgets

This paper describes a general purpose Coronagraph Performance Error Budget (CPEB) tool that we have developed under the NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program. The CPEB automates many of the key steps required to evaluate the scattered starlight contrast in the dark hole of a space-based coronagraph. It operates in 3 steps: first, a CodeV or Zemax prescription is converted into a MACOS optical prescription. Second, a Matlab program calls ray-trace code that generates linear beam-walk and aberration sensitivity matrices for motions of the optical elements and line-of-sight pointing, with and without controlled coarse and fine-steering mirrors. Third, the sensitivity matrices are imported by macros into Excel 2007 where the error budget is created. Once created, the user specifies the quality of each optic from a predefined set of PSDs. The spreadsheet creates a nominal set of thermal and jitter motions and combines them with the sensitivity matrices to generate an error budget for the system. The user can easily modify the motion allocations to perform trade studies.

Terrestrial Planet Finder↗
NASA NTRS2002

Toric offset three-reflector antenna for the advanced microwave limb sounder

An advanced Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), now in concept development for a potential future mission, is a space-borne heterodyne instrument to measure pressure, temperature, and atmospheric constituents from thermal emission between 120 and 2400 GHz. Previous MLS instruments used pencil-beam antennas sized to resolve N 1 vertical scale height. Current atmospheric models need better horizontal resolution than orbit spacing provides. To meet these needs, a new antenna concept combines the wide scan range of the parabolic torus with unblocked offset Cassegrain optics. The resulting system is diffraction-limited in the vertical plane but extremely astigmatic, with beamwidths 0.13~2.5. Nadir axis symmetry ensures that this Beam AspectRatio (BAR) is invariant over f33' of azimuth. The antenna can feed either an array of receivers or multiplexed low-noise receivers whose FOVs are swept by a small scanning mirror. We describe 3 stages of antenna design: First, using a paraxial-optics method, we choose conic profiles given vertical resolution orbit geometry, then develop the surfaces by nadir axis rotation, matching axisymmetric feeds to the BAR. A ray-trace program validates the design and generates alignment and deformation tolerances. Finally, a physical optics analysis verifies reflector surface currents and radiation patterns.

microwave↗