SEARCH · Engineering Papers
Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Development of a four channel comparative photometer is described. Tests have shown that it is stable from night to night and is capable of working in very poor sky conditions. Even when the sky conditions are so poor that stars are barely visible, light curves can still be obtained with an r.m.s. value of 0.0016 mag., provided that integration times that are long compared with the transparancy changes are possible.
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data and aerial photographs were obtained over pack ice off the East Coast of Canada in March 1987 as part of the Labrador Ice Margin Experiment (LIMEX) pilot project. Examination of this data shows that although the pack ice off the Canadian East Coast appears essentially homogeneous to visible light imagery, two clearly defined zones of ice are apparent on C-band SAR imagery. To identify factors that create the zones seen on the radar image, aerial photographs were compared to the SAR imagery. Floe size data from the aerial photographs was compared to digital number values taken from SAR imagery of the same ice. The SAR data of the inner zone acquired three days apart over the melt period was also examined. The studies indicate that the radar response is governed by floe size and meltwater distribution.
This paper reports on the oxidation of Mn(II) by pure cultures of Chlorella. It is shown that these cultures establish strong microgradients of pH and O2 concentration due to their photosynthetic activity, and it is demonstrated that Mn oxidation in the pelagic zone of Oneida Lake, New York, is limited to a microzone of high pH and O2 associated with the near-surface aggregates of phytoplankton cells. The data suggest that visible light is important in catalyzing Mn oxidation by driving the photosynthetic removal of CO2 with concomitant increases in pH.
Initial measurements of the position sensitivity of a visible-light multianode microchannel array detector show that centroid calculations for image spots are accurate to better than 0.04 pixels even with sources that are essentially delta functions at the photocathode.Subpixel sensitivity variations of 10-15 percent are typically found for pixels in the array. Variations as large as 30 percent are possible in the worst conditions. These variations limit the photometric accuracy of the detector when very small scale features are observed. The photometric accuracy and the position sensitivity of the detector appear to be limited by cross-coupling effects within the anode array. Initial measurements with more recent designs of the detector show that most or all of this cross-coupling has been eliminated.
A map is presented of the CO J = 3-2 line emission from the cloud associated with V645 Cygni. Line wings extending to 15 km/s on either side of the central velocity can be attributed to a bipolar outflow over a region 1 arcmin in angular extent. The redshifted and blueshifted emission peaks are separated by 20 arcsecs along an axis that is approximately perpendicular to the polarization vector of the visible light. The outflow is of relatively low velocity, low mass, and low mechanical luminosity.
Two methods for real time internal diagnostics of arcjet engines are described. One method uses cold, thermal, or epithermal neutrons. Cold neutrons are used to detect the presence and location of hydrogenous propellants. Thermal neutrons are used to delineate the edge contours of anode and cathode surfaces and to measure stress/strain. Epithermal neutrons are used to measure temperatures on arcjet surfaces, bulk material temperatures, and point temperatures in bulk materials. It is found that this method, with an exposure time of 10 min, produces at temperature accuracy for W or Re of + or - 2.5 C. The other method uses visible-light high-speed photogrammetry to obtain images of the transient behavior of the arc during start-up and to relate this behavior to electrial supply characteristics such as voltage, current, and ripple.
Earth resources observed in greater detail. High-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer, undergoing development for use in NASA's Earth Observing System, measures reflectance of Earth's surface in visible and near-infrared wavelengths. From an orbit around Earth, instrument scans surface of Earth in 200 wavelength bands simultaneously. Produces images enabling identification of minerals in rocks and soils, important algal pigments in oceans and inland waters, changes in spectra associated with biochemistry of plant canopies, compositions of atmospheric aerosols, sizes of grains in snow, and contamination of snow by impurities that absorb visible light.
Integrated-circuit antenna structure contains two-dimensional array of antennas and antenna reflectors. In receiving mode, each antenna acts as part of detector for one picture element in millimeter- or submillimeter-wavelength imaging radar system. Millimeter-wave imaging system used to view objects through fog, smoke, or smog with resolution intermediate between microwave and visible-light imaging systems. Antenna elements, supports, and reflectors made by integrated-circuit techniques. Structures fabricated on front and back substrates separately. Substrates then joined. Inexpensive way to provide large number of small antenna elements required for imaging, all mounted rigidly in way that does not degrade operation.
The Solar-A satellite being prepared by the Institute for Sapce and Astronautical Sciences (ISAS) in Japan is dedicated to high energy observations of solar flares. The Soft X Ray Telescope (SXT) is being prepared to provide filtered images in the 2 to 60 A interval. The flight model is now undergoing tests in the 1000 foot tunnel at MSFC. Launch will be in September 1991. Earlier resolution and efficiency tests on the grazing incidence mirror have established its performance in soft x rays. The one-piece, two mirror grazing incidence telescope is supported in a strain free mount separated from the focal plane assembly by a carbon-epoxy metering tube whose windings and filler are chosen to minimize thermal and hygroscopic effects. The CCD detector images both the x ray and the concentric visible light aspect telescope. Optical filters provide images at 4308 and 4700 A. The SXT will be capable of producing over 8000 of the smallest partial frame images per day, or fewer but larger images, up to 1024 x 1024 pixel images. Image sequence with two or more of the five x ray analysis filters, with automatic exposure compensation to optimize the charge collection by the CCD detector, will be used to provide plasma diagnostics. Calculations using a differential emission measure code were used to optimize filter selection over the range of emission measure variations and to avoid redundancy, but the filters were chosen primarily to give ratios that are monotonic in plasma temperature.
SOUP is a versatile, visible-light solar observatory, built for space or balloon flight. It is designed to study magnetic and velocity fields in the solar atmosphere with high spatial resolution and temporal uniformity, which cannot be achieved from the surface of the earth. The SOUP investigation is carried out by the Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory, under contract to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Co-investigators include staff members at a dozen observatories and universities in the U.S. and Europe. The primary objectives of the SOUP experiment are: to measure vector magnetic and velocity fields in the solar atmosphere with much better spatial resolution than can be achieved from the ground; to study the physical processes that store magnetic energy in active regions and the conditions that trigger its release; and to understand how magnetic flux emerges, evolves, combines, and disappears on spatial scales of 400 to 100,000 km. SOUP is designed to study intensity, magnetic, and velocity fields in the photosphere and low chromosphere with 0.5 arcsec resolution, free of atmospheric disturbances. The instrument includes: a 30 cm Cassegrain telescope; an active mirror for image stabilization; broadband film and TV cameras; a birefringent filter, tunable over 5100 to 6600 A with 0.05 A bandpass; a 35 mm film camera and a digital CCD camera behind the filter; and a high-speed digital image processor.
Solar cells in space plasma conditions are known to arc into the plasma when the interconnects are at a negative potential of a few hundred volts, relative to plasma potential. For cells with silver-coated interconnects, a threshold voltage for arcing exists at about -230 V, as found in both ground and LEO experiments. The arc rate beyond the threshold voltage depends nearly linearly on plasma density, but has a strong power-law dependence on voltage, such that for small increments in operating voltage there is a large increment in arc rate. The arcs generate broadband radio interference and visible light. In ground tests, interconnects have been damaged by arcs in cells having insufficient isolation from a source of high current. Models for the arcs are highly dependent on the choice of interconnect conductor material exposed to the plasma and possibly on the geometry and choice of adjacent insulator material. Finally, new technology solar cells use copper for the cell interconnects, a material which may have a lower arcing threshold voltage than silver. It is expected, from ground tests of simulated solar cells, that any junction of conductor and insulator exposed to space plasma conditions will arc into the plasma at a few hundred volts negative potential, relative to the local plasma.
A solar coronal loop system has been photographed in soft X-rays using a normal incidence telescope based on multilayer mirror technology. The telescope consisted of a spherical objective mirror of 4 cm aperture and 1 m focal length, a film cassette, and a focal plane shutter. A metallized thin plastic film filter was used to exclude visible light. The objective mirror was covered with a multilayer coating consisting of alternating layers of tungsten and carbon whose combined thicknesses satisfied the Bragg diffraction condition for 44 A radiation. The image was recorded during a rocket flight on October 25, 1985 and was dominated by emission lines arising from the Si XII spectrum. The rocket also carried a high resolution soft X-ray spectrograph that confirmed the presence of Si XII line radiation in the source. This image represents the first successful use of multilayer technology for astrophysical observations.
Because particles of sizes larger than a few tenths microns adversely affect high resolution X-ray telescopes by scattering and absorbing X-rays, the cleanliness required to maintain the about 1 percent overall calibration precision desired for the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) is being investigated. At the grazing angles used for the AXAF mirrors, each particle shadows a surface area about 100 times its geometric area, necessitating glass occlusion specifications much more stringent than typically stipulated for visible-light particulate contamination. On test flats coated with gold, controlled levels of contamination have been deposited spanning the range from 5 x 10 to the -5th to 0.005 fractional area covered, and the absorption component of extinction has been measured over a range of grazing angles and X-ray energies to verify the predicted effects of particulate contamination.
The fabrication of the Technology Mirror Assembly (TMA) is complete, and performance predictions were made based upon mechanical and visible light measurements of the surface properties. An X-ray calibration program has been executed, and a preliminary analysis of a portion of the data is presented. The X-ray image distribution results are in reasonable agreement with the performance predictions which were calculated prior the start of the X-ray tests. The measured X-ray imaging performance approaches that expected for the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF).
Results are presented on a calibration with X-rays of a front-illuminated virtual phase CCD with a 1024 x 1024 pixel array, performed as a part of the Solar-A preparation, which is a joint Japanese-U.S.-UK space project scheduled for a launch in August 1991. In the experiment, absolute quantum efficiency (QE) of a virtual CCD was measured at 14 wavelengths between 5.4 and 67.7 A, and its flat field responses to the illumination by C-K and Al-K X-rays were investigated together with its imaging properties in visible light. Higher than expected QE measurements were obtained at soft X-ray and EUV wavelengths; these are considered to be caused by fluorescence occurring in the absorbing layers on the CCD-entrance aperture.
Two of the first Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) results were that galaxies have a wide range of values for the ratio of 60 micron to 100 micron flux density (0.2 less than or equal to S sub 60/S sub 100 less than or equal to 1.0) and that this ratio is correlated with L sub fir, L sub b, L sub fir being the total far-infrared luminosity and L sub b being the luminosity at visible wavelengths (de Jong et al. 1984; Soifer et al. 1984). From these results arose the following simple model for the far-infrared emission from galaxies (de Jong et al. 1984), which has remained the standard model ever since. In this model, the far-infrared emission comes from two dust components: warm dust (T approx. equals 50 K) intermingled with, and heated by, young massive OB stars in molecular clouds and HII regions, and colder dust (T approx. equals 20 K) associated with the diffuse atomic hydrogen in the interstellar medium and heated by the general interstellar radiation field. As the number of young stars in a galaxy increases, S sub 60/S sub 100 increases, because there is a greater proportion of warm dust, and so does L sub fir/L sub b, because most of the radiation from the young stars is absorbed by the dust, leading to a swifter increase in far-infrared emission than in visible light. Although this model explains the basic IRAS results, it is inelegant. It uses two free parameters to fit two data (the 60 and 100 micron flux densities)-and there are now several observations that contradict it. Despite these major problems with the two-component model, it is not clear what should be put in its place. When considering possible models for the far-infrared emission from galaxies, the observational evidence for our own galaxy must be considered. Researchers suspect that the study by Boulanger and Perault (1988) of the far-infrared properties of the local interstellar medium may be particularly relevant. They showed that molecular clouds are leaky - that most of the light from OB stars in molecular clouds does not heat the dust in the clouds, but instead leaks out. The consequence of this is that that while most of the far-infrared emission from the solar neighborhood is from dust associated with diffuse HI, this dust is mostly heated by young stars.
A conceptual plan for the development of a comprehensive long duration solar space observatory, The Advanced Solar Observatory (ASO) is described. The ASO is intended to provide solar astronomers with the observational power necessary to address fundamental problems relating to the solar convection zone and activity cycle; the thermal and nonthermal processes that control the transport of energy, mass, and magnetic flux in the solar atmosphere; the generation of the solar wind; and the dynamics of the inner heliosphere. The ASO concept encompasses three proposed Space Station-based instrument ensembles: (1) the High Resolution Telescope Cluster, which includes far ultraviolet, extreme ultraviolet, and X-ray telescopes; (2) the Pinhole/Occulter Facility, which includes Fourier transform and coded aperture hard X-ray and gamma ray telescopes and occulted ultraviolet and visible light coronagraphs; and (3) the High Energy Facility, which contains neutron, gamma ray, and low frequency radio spectrometers. Two other facilities, the Orbiting Solar Laboratory, and a package of Global Dynamics Instrumentation, will, with the Space Station ensembles, form a comprehensive capability for solar physics. The scientific program of the ASO, current instrument concepts for the Space Station based ASO instrument ensembles, and plans for their accommodation on the Space Station are described.
Long communication times between earth and Mars demand autonomous landing capabilities. If high-resolution imagery acquired from an orbiter is available to select and certify a specific safe landing site or sites, navigational updates relative to the surface can be used to achieve the necessary accuracy to land within these certified sites. Autonomous registrations of the orbiter's imagery with photographs of the landing area taken by the lander during descent can provide the necessary accuracy and robustness. If orbital imagery is not available, autonomous hazard recognition and avoidance will be required to guide the lander to a hazard-free site. Feature extraction and matching algorithms, applied to visible light imagery and optimized to the terrain discovered by the Viking landers, can provide both an accurate surface-relative navigational update capability and a hazard recognition capability.