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At least 343 records · Page 19
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1978

NASA NR hydrogen maser

The Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory, under contract to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, is engineering a new generation of field operable hydrogen masers (NR) based on prior NASA NP and NX designs. These units incorporate improvements in magnetic shielding, lower noise electronics, better thermal control and have a microprocessor for operation, monitoring and diagnostic functions. They are ruggedly built for transportability and ease of service anywhere in the world.

Rueger, L. J.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Effects of hydrogen atom spin exchange collisions on atomic hydrogen maser oscillation frequency

Frequency shifts due to collisions between hydrogen atoms in an atomic hydrogen maser frequency standard are studied. Investigations of frequency shifts proportional to the spin exchange frequency shift cross section and those proportional to the duration of exchange collisions are discussed. The feasibility of operating a hydrogen frequency standard at liquid helium temperatures is examined.

Crampton, S. B.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Hydrogen maser implementation in the Deep Space Network at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The Frequency Standard Test Laboratory and its activities are described. The test laboratory has the capability to measure the frequency stability of five frequency standards including environmental parameters. Nine frequency standards may be evaluated simultaneously upon completion of the current instrumentation expansion program. Frequency stability measurements and environmental data on five H-masers are presented.

Kuhnle, P. F.↗
NASA NTRS1980

A catalog of nonstellar water maser sources

A list of 195 nonstellar galactic sources of water maser emission has been compiled. This list is not a comprehensive catalog of all the available information; it is intended to be used as an index. As such, it contains only coordinates, velocities, and selected references. The extragalatic sources are listed in a separate table.

Dinger, A. S. C.↗
NASA NTRS1980

X-band, low-noise, traveling-wave maser

The development and performance of X-band traveling-wave maser (TWM) systems with effective input noise temperature of 3.5 K and bandwidths varying from 65 to 108 MHz is discussed. These TWMs are used on the 64-meter antennas at Deep Space Stations 14, 43 and 63 at 8420 MHz to meet the requirements of the Voyager-Saturn encounter. The TWMs use shortened and cooled signal input waveguide to reduce noise and are equipped with superconducting magnets and solid-state pump sources to provide the required stability performance.

Trowbridge, D. L.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Test of relativistic gravitation with a space-borne hydrogen maser

The results of a test of general relativity with use of a hydrogen-maser frequency standard in a spacecraft launched nearly vertically upward to 10,000 km are reported. The agreement of the observed relativistic frequency shift with prediction is at the 70 x 10 to the -6th level.

Vessot, R. F. C.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Far-infrared observations of the H2O masers in NGC 281, NGC 2175, and S255/257

The H2O masers in NGC 281, NGC 2175, and S255/257 have been observed in four far-infrared bands from 40-140 microns with 30 arcsec and 50 arcsec beams. The far-IR positions are consistent with the H2O positions. The far-IR sources have luminosities of 10 to the 4 + or 0.5 solar luminosities, dust temperatures of 36-50 K, H densities greater than 10 to the 4.5, and apparent masses of 12-120 solar masses.

Wright, E. L.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Traveling-wave maser, closed cycle refrigerator automation

At the present time all traveling-wave maser and closed-cycle refrigerator system (TWM-CCR) and their power supply and helium compressor assemblies are operated manually. Many man-hours are required of highly trained and experienced operators, resulting in high operator cost. Of greater importance are the problems of unpredictable failure and long downtimes. Since field performance is not monitored, system degradation is detected only when it has progressed to the point of catastrophic failure. Without the aid of performance histories, failure diagnosis is arduous and slow. Rational and functional requirements for the TWM-CCR Automation project are the following: (1) to improve reliability and reduce downtime by providing unattended monitor and control, alarm and fault location, failure prediction and self-corrective action; (2) to reduce operator cost by providing automatic tuning and cooldown procedures; and (3) to improve system operations and development by providing the needed engineering data.

Mcneil, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Maser radiometer for cosmic background radiation anisotropy measurements

A maser amplifier was incorporated into a low noise radiometer designed to measure large-scale anisotropy in the 3 deg K microwave background radiation. To minimize emission by atmospheric water vapor and oxygen, the radiometer is flown in a small balloon to an altitude to 25 km. Three successful flights were made - two from Palestine, Texas and one from Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil. Good sky coverage is important to the experiment. Data from the northern hemisphere flights has been edited and calibrated.

Fixsen, D. J.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Resonant isolator for maser amplifier

An isolator is described for use in a low noise maser amplifier, which provides low loss across a wide bandwidth and which can be constructed at moderate cost. The isolator includes a train of garnet or ferrite elements extending along the length of a microwave channel parallel to the slow wave structure, with the elements being of staggered height, so that the thin elements which are resonant to the microwaves are separated by much thicker elements. The thick garnet or ferrite elements reduce the magnetic flux passing through the thin elements to permit altering of the shape of the thin elements so as to facilitate their fabrication and to provide better isolation with reduced loss, by increasing the thickness of the thin elements and decreasing their length and width.

Clauss, R. C.↗
NASA NTRS1983

High-accuracy global time and frequency transfer with a space-borne hydrogen maser clock

A proposed system for high-accuracy global time and frequency transfer using a hydrogen maser clock in a space vehicle is discussed. Direct frequency transfer with a accuracy of 10 to the minus 14th power and time transfer with an estimated accuracy of 1 nsec are provided by a 3-link microwave system. A short pulse laser system is included for subnanosecond time transfer and system calibration. The results of studies including operational aspects, error sources, data flow, system configuration, and implementation requirements for an initial demonstration experiment using the Space Shuttle are discussed.

Decher, R.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Collisional rates for vibrational-rotational transitions in circumstellar SiO masers

Calculations for rotational population inversion in circumstellar SiO masers require collisional rates for vibrational-rotational transitions. This paper reports quantum mechanical, state-to-state collisional rate coefficients for pure rotational and vibrational-rotational transitions among the first three vibrational states of SiO. These are expressed in terms of simple two-parameter power-law fits accurate in the temperature range 1000-3000 K.

Bieniek, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1983

An electron cyclotron maser instability for astrophysical plasmas

The electron cyclotron maser instability is analyzed for a plasma which consists of a suprathermal electron component characterized by velocity-space anisotropies in directions both parallel and perpendicular to the ambient magnetic field, as well as a high-density thermal plasma in which omega sub e is approximately equal to Omega sub e (where omega sub e and Omega sub e are the electron plasma and cyclotron frequencies). The complete relativistic resonance condition is used and shown to result in a 'resonance ellipse' in momentum space. The instability is considered for both cold and warm suprathermal electron distributions, and for frequencies omega approximately equal to Omega sub e in the ordinary mode and omega approximately equal to 2(Omega sub e) in the fast extraordinary mode. It is shown that the growth rates are comparable for these harmonics over a wide range of parameters which, since they are escape modes of the plasma, can lead to comparable radiation intensities.

Freund, H. P.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Detailed design of a variable volume hydrogen maser

Identification of the hydrogen maser design parameters include the shape of the bulk, q (quality parameter), tuning factors, materials to be used, and operational temperature to offset the wall shift. Expressions for the statistic error on the measured frequency were derived. Localized variations in the concentration of excited atoms were studied and how the shape of the container (the ratio of surface to volume in particular) affects their behavior.

Cervenka, P. O.↗
NASA NTRS1984

A Study of DSN Traveling Wave Maser System Reliability

Reliability and availability characteristics of the DSN traveling wave maser (TWM) Assemblies are reported for the years 1981 through 1983, the charcteristics determined are: mean time between failures (MTBF) - 1200 hours; mean time to restore service (MTTRS) - 2.5 hours; and availability - 99.83%. The TWM MTBF is very good as compared to other DSN subsystems and assemblies. The TWM MTTRS is currently about three times as long as the average of other DSN subsystems. The dominant cause of TWM failures is contamination of the helium gas in the closed cycle refrigerators. Station configurations that do not provide TWM redundancy are subject to reception outages for long periods of time. Recommendations are made to improve the TWM Assembly availability characteristics for future mission support operations.

Stevens, R.↗
NASA NTRS1984

A kinetic cyclotron maser instability associated with a hollow beam of electrons

A kinetic cyclotron maser instability associated with a hollow-beam distribution function is studied. The instability differs from that discussed for the gyrotron device in two respects: in the present case the momentum dispersion is substantial, and furthermore there exists a low-energy background plasma. On the basis of physical arguments it can be demonstrated that the hollow-beam distribution is far more unstable than the loss cone distribution which has been extensively investigated in recent years. A criterion for maximum growth rate is established on the basis of consideration of the resonance ellipse. The validity of this criterion is supported by the results of numerical calculation.

Wu, C. S.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Electron-cyclotron maser emission during solar and stellar flares

Radio bursts, with high brightness temperature 10 to the 10th power K and high degree of polarization, and the heating of the solar and stellar coronae during flares have been attributed to emission from the semirelativistic maser instability. In plasmas where the electron-plasma frequency, p, omega sub p, and the electron-cyclotron frequency, Omega sub e, are such that omega sup 2 sub p/Omega sup 2 sub e 1, x-mode growth dominates while z-mode growth dominates if omega sup 2 sub p/Omega sup 2 sub e is of order unity. The actual value of omega sup 2 sub p/Omega sup 2 sub e at which x-mode growth dominates is shown to be dependent on the plasma temperature with x-mode growth dominating at higher omega sub p/Omega sub e as the plasma temperature increases. Observations from a set of 20 impulsive flares indicate that the derived conditions for the dominance of x-mode growth are satisfied in about 75 percent of the flares.

Winglee, R. M.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Maser cavity servo-tuning system

Two collocated, weakly coupled probes, one loop and one dipole, detect the magnetic and electric fields inside a maser cavity. Signals from the probes are compared in phase, and the signal output from the phase detector is applied to a varactor, the reactance of which is coupled into the cavity by a microwave coupler. Alternatively, the varactor may be placed inside the cavity. Any deviation of phase from 90 deg as detected by the phase detector will then produce an error signal that will change the reactance coupled into the resonant cavity to change its reactance, and thus correct its resonance frequency. An alternative to using two probes is to use a single disk probe oriented to detect both the magnetic and electric fields, and thus provide the error signal directly.

Sydnor, R. L.↗