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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.

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At least 325 records · Page 18
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1997

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Mission Concept Study

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), a next generation high-energy gamma-ray mission designed to observe cosmic sources of gamma-rays over the approximate energy range from 10 MeV to 300 GeV, was studied for possible flight in the next decade. The GLAST baseline mission studied will achieve a major advance in sensitivity beyond EGRET by the use of modern particle physics tracking technology. The baseline instrument design that has been extensively studied uses solid-state silicon strip detectors for particle tracking and efficient on-board data processing and event triggering to achieve more than an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity compared to EGRET. Development of technology requirements and a technology development roadmap for the GLAST mission is presented.

Michelson, Peter F.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Responsivity variations in the IRAS survey

The IRAS survey detectors show nonlinear characteristics in their gains and baselines. This behavior can be described by an exponentially decaying gain enhancement, dependent on previously observed flux. The baseline behavior has been modeled by a decaying function composed of the sum of two exponential functions. The scale lengths are 10 arcmin and 1.1 deg for 12 microns, and 8 arcmin and 43 arcmin for 25 microns. Amplitude changes due to this type of hysteresis are less than 1 percent. In addition there is a considerable response of all detectors to particles associated with the South Atlantic Anomaly. Attempts to correct for this effect were performed on the 12- , 60- and 100-micron detectors in the form of bias boosts. This note presents a correction procedure for the 25-micron detectors.

Deul, E. R.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Orbiting meteoroid and debris counting experiment

The Orbiting Meteoroid and Debris Counting Experiment (OMDC) flew for approximately 90 days in a highly elliptical earth orbit onboard the Clementine Interstage Adapter (ISA) Spacecraft. This experiment obtained data on the impact flux of natural micrometeoroids and it provided limited information on the population of small mass man-made debris as a function of altitude in near earth space. The flight of the OMDC experiment on the ISA spacecraft also demonstrated that the ultra-lightweight, low-power, particle impact detector system that was used is a viable system for flights on future spacecraft to monitor the population of small mass man-made debris particles and to map the cosmic dust environment encountered on interplanetary missions. An overview of the ISA spacecraft mission, the approach to the OMDC experiment, and the data obtained by the experiment are presented.

Kinard, William H.↗
NASA NTRS1966

Some doubts about the Earth's dust cloud.

Inconclusiveness of satellite measurements of micrometeoroid fluxes using piezoelectric microphone detectors in supporting hypothesis of cloud of dust surrounding Earth

MICROMETEOROID↗
NASA NTRS1966

The neutron flux in space following a polar cap neutron event on November 15, 1960

A neutron detector flown on an Atlas pod during the 15 November 1960 solar event measured a larger neutron flux than another detector flown on a similar vehicle during a quiet solar period. The excess neutron flux at low latitudes obtained by comparing these two measurements is about an order of magnitude higher than expected from the neutron production in the atmosphere by solar protons as deduced from Lingenfelter's calculations and Webber's model for the 15 November event. It is suggested that most of the discrepancy can be accounted for by considering neutron production by energetic solar alpha particles and lowered geomagnetic cutoffs.

NEUTRON FLUX↗
NASA NTRS1990

The Joint NASA/Goddard-University of Maryland Research Program in Charged Particle and High Energy Photon Detector Technology

The Univ. of Maryland portion investigated the following areas. The Space Physics Group performed studies of data from the AMPTE/CCE spacecraft CHEM experiment and found that the ratio of solar wind to photospheric abundances decreased rather smoothly with the first ionization potential (FIP) of the ion with the low FIP ion being about a factor of two overabundant. Carbon and hydrogen fit this trend particularly well. Several occurrences were analyzed of field aligned beams observed when CCE was upstream of the Earth's bow shock. Also using CHEM data, ring current intensity and composition changes during the main and recovery phases of the great geomagnetic storm that occurred in February 1986 was examined in detail. Still using CHEM data, ring current characteristics were examined in a survey of 20 magnetic storms ranging in size from -50 nT to -312 nT. A study was done of energetic ion anisotropy characteristics in the Earth's magnetosheath region using data from the UMD/MPE experiment on ISEE-1. The properties were analyzed of approx. 30 to 130 keV/e protons and alpha particles upstream of six quasi-parallel interplanetary shocks that passed by the ISEE-3 spacecraft during 1978 to 1979. Work from NASA-Goddard include studies from the High Energy Cosmic Ray Group, Low Energy Cosmic Ray Group, Low Energy Gamma Ray Group, High Energy Astrophysics Theory Group, and the X ray Astronomy Group.

Ipavich, F. M.↗
NASA NTRS2011

The Super-TIGER Instrument to Probe Galactic Cosmic Ray Origins

Super-TIGER (Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder) is under construction for the first of two planned Antarctic long-duration balloon flights in December 2012. This new instrument will measure the abundances of ultra-heavy elements (30Zn and heavier), with individual element resolution, to provide sensitive tests of the emerging model of cosmic-ray origins in OB associations and models of the mechanism for selection of nuclei for acceleration. Super-TIGER builds on the techniques of TIGER, which produced the first well-resolved measurements of elemental abundances of the elements 31Ga, 32Ge, and 34Se. Plastic scintillators together with acrylic and silica-aerogel Cherenkov detectors measure particle charge. Scintillating-fiber hodoscopes track particle trajectories. Super-TIGER has an active area of 5.4 sq m, divided into two independent modules. With reduced material thickness to decrease interactions, its effective geometry factor is approx.6.4 times larger than TIGER, allowing it to measure elements up to 42Mo with high statistical precision, and make exploratory measurements up to 56Ba. Super-TIGER will also accurately determine the energy spectra of the more abundant elements from l0Ne to 28Ni between 0.8 and 10 GeV/nucleon to test the hypothesis that microquasars or other sources could superpose spectral features. We will discuss the implications of Super-TIGER measurements for the study of cosmic-ray origins and will present the measurement technique, design, status, and expected performance, including numbers of events and resolution. Details of the hodoscopes, scintillators, and Cherenkov detectors will be given in other presentations at this conference.

Mitchell, John W.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Holographic particle detection

The feasibility was studied of developing a novel particle track detector based on the detection of 1p-1s emission radiation from electron bubbles in liquid helium. The principles, design, construction, and initial testing of the detection system have been described in previous reports. The main obstacle encountered was the construction of the liquid-helium tight infrared windows. Despite numerous efforts in testing and redesigning the windows, the problem of window leakage at low temperature persisted. Due to limited time and resources, attention was switched to investigating the possibility of using room-temperature liquid as the detection medium. A possible mechanism was the detection of de-excitation radiation emitted from localized electrons in common liquids where electrons exhibit low mobilities, as suggested in the previous report. The purity of the liquid is critical in this method as the dissolved impurities (such as oxygen), even in trace amounts, will act as scavengers of electrons. Another mechanism is discussed whereby the formation of the superoxide ions by electron scavenging behavior of dissolved oxygen is exploited to detect the track of ionizing particles. An experiment to measure the ionization current produced in a liquid by a pulsed X-ray beam in order to study propertiies of the ions is also reported.

Bowen, Theodore↗
NASA NTRS2016

Multi-Parameter Scattering Sensor and Methods

Methods, detectors and systems detect particles and/or measure particle properties. According to one embodiment, a detector for detecting particles comprises: a sensor for receiving radiation scattered by an ensemble of particles; and a processor for determining a physical parameter for the detector, or an optimal detection angle or a bound for an optimal detection angle, for measuring at least one moment or integrated moment of the ensemble of particles, the physical parameter, or detection angle, or detection angle bound being determined based on one or more of properties (a) and/or (b) and/or (c) and/or (d) or ranges for one or more of properties (a) and/or (b) and/or (c) and/or (d), wherein (a)-(d) are the following: (a) is a wavelength of light incident on the particles, (b) is a count median diameter or other characteristic size parameter of the particle size distribution, (c) is a standard deviation or other characteristic width parameter of the particle size distribution, and (d) is a refractive index of particles.

Greenberg, Paul S.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Charge, energy and LET spectra of high LET primary and secondary particles in CR-39 plastic nuclear track detectors of the P0006 experiment

We have measured the charge, energy and linear energy transfer (LET) spectra of about 800 high LET (LET(sub infinity) H2O greater than 50 keV/micron) particles in CR-39 plastic nuclear track detectors in the P0006 experiment of LDEF. Primary particles with residual range at the reference surface greater than about 2 microns and secondary particles produced in the detector material with total range greater than about 4 microns were measured. We have used a multi-etch technique and an internal calibration to identify and measure the energy of the particles at the reference surface. The LET spectrum was obtained from the charge and energy distribution of the particles.

Csige, I.↗
NASA NTRS1961

Radiation Observations with Satellite 1958 Alpha Explorer I

On 1 February 1958 at 0348 U.T. earth satellite 1958 Alpha (Explorer I) was launched from Cape Canaveral. This satellite contained a Geiger Muller tube for the measurement of the flux of energetic charged particles, and detectors for determining the micrometeorite flux and satellite temperature (see Figure 1), The high power transmitter and its associated instrumentation operated until partial exhaustion of the transmitter batteries on 12 February 1958. The transmitter reappeared briefly on 24 February, The low power system operated properly until about 0700 U,T, on 16 March, at which time the batteries powering the G.M. tube circuits became exhausted. During the operating time a large amount of data was recorded by a network of seventeen receiving stations. A sampling of early recordings was reduced and analyzed as they arrived from the receiving stations. These data, in conjunction with data from the first few orbits of 1958 Gamma (Explorer III), resulted in the announcement on 1 May 1958 of the region of high intensity radiation surrounding the earth (Van Allen, 1958), The detailed, complete reduction of the 1958 Alpha data has now been completed, This paper is a tabulation of all the data received from this satellite. It consists primarily of two parts. The first part is the master recording log on which are listed all recordings of the satellite signals obtained by the receiving station network. The actual data tabulation is contained in part two.

RADIATION↗