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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 577 records · Page 32
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1973

Atmospheric effects in ERTS-1 data, and advanced information extraction techniques

Atmospheric effects in satellite multispectral scanner data can influence results obtained with either manual image interpretation or computer information extraction techniques. The atmosphere attenuates radiation arriving from the surface and adds an extraneous path radiance component. Initial results of an investigation of atmospheric effects in ERTS data are presented. Empirical analyses of ERTS MSS data and simultaneous airborne MSS underflight data for one frame, along with theoretical calculations of atmospheric effects, are discussed. The effect of limited spatial resolution on the accuracy of information extracted from ERTS data also is important. Problems occur when individual resolution elements contain two or more materials. Results from an initial application of ERIM techniques for estimating proportions of materials within individual elements are presented and discussed. Very accurate determination of surface areas of small lakes is achieved.

Malila, W. A.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Satellite geological and geophysical remote sensing of Iceland

The author has identified the following significant results. ERTS-1 imagery provides sufficient resolution to discern two effects of geothermal activity at the Namafjall geothermal area: snowmelt anomalies and delineation of altered ground. The fallout pattern of tephra from Hekla's 1970 volcanic eruption can be mapped where sufficient depth of deposition destroyed the vegetation. Lava flows from the volcanic eruptions at Askja and Hekla can be delineated. Low sun-angle imagery of snow-covered terrain has permitted the mapping of new structural and volcanic features beneath the icecaps. Coastline changes on the islands of Surtsey and Heimaey can be mapped. Variations of sediment plumes from glacial rivers on the south coast give a qualitative indication of seasonal changes in melting rates of glaciers. ERTS-1 imagery has been shown to be especially amenable to portrayal of changing glaciological phenomena: surging glaciers, collapse features in icecaps caused by subglacial volcanic (?) and geothermal activity and resulting jokulhlaups, and variations in size of glacier-margin lakes. A fifth vegetation class has now been added: lichen-covered bedrock. The high latitude permits more precise analysis of landforms, vegetation distribution, occurrence of snow cover, glaciers, and geologic structure.

Williams, R. S., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Infrared scanner concept verification test report

The test results from a concept verification test conducted to assess the use of an infrared scanner as a remote temperature sensing device for the space shuttle program are presented. The temperature and geometric resolution limits, atmospheric attenuation effects including conditions with fog and rain, and the problem of surface emissivity variations are included. It is concluded that the basic concept of using an infrared scanner to determine near freezing surface temperatures is feasible. The major problem identified is concerned with infrared reflections which result in significant errors if not controlled. Action taken to manage these errors result in design and operational constraints to control the viewing angle and surface emissivity.

Bachtel, F. D.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Orbiting passive microwave sensor simulation applied to soil moisture estimation

A sensor/scene simulation program was developed and used to determine the effects of scene heterogeneity, resolution, frequency, look angle, and surface and temperature relations on the performance of a spaceborne passive microwave system designed to estimate soil water information. The ground scene is based on classified LANDSAT images which provide realistic ground classes, as well as geometries. It was determined that the average sensitivity of antenna temperature to soil moisture improves as the antenna footprint size increased. Also, the precision (or variability) of the sensitivity changes as a function of resolution.

Newton, R. W.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Extended range X-ray telescope: X-ray microscope design

A glancing incidence X-ray microscope using a confocal hyperboloid ellipsoid mirror was designed to couple optically a Wolter 1 telescope to a CCD focal plane detector. Both the RMS spot size and the point spread function calculations were used to evaluate the resolution, defocusing, and vignetting effects of the system for microscope focal lengths of 1, 1.5, and 2 meters and for magnifications varying from 2 to 10x. For the specific application with the S-056 telescope, a 2 meter, 8x microscope with a fabrication ratio of the microscope mirror length to the inner diameter at hyperboloid ellipsoid intersection of 2.5 was designed to be used with a thinned, back illuminated CCD detector array with 320 by 512, 30 micron pixels.

Shealy, D. L.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Unbiased estimation of oceanic mean rainfall from satellite borne radiometer measurements

The statistical properties of the radar derived rainfall obtained during the GARP Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE) are used to derive quantitative estimates of the spatial and temporal sampling errors associated with estimating rainfall from brightness temperature measurements such as would be obtained from a satelliteborne microwave radiometer employing a practical size antenna aperture. A basis for a method of correcting the so called beam filling problem, i.e., for the effect of nonuniformity of rainfall over the radiometer beamwidth is provided. The method presented employs the statistical properties of the observations themselves without need for physical assumptions beyond those associated with the radiative transfer model. The simulation results presented offer a validation of the estimated accuracy that can be achieved and the graphs included permit evaluation of the effect of the antenna resolution on both the temporal and spatial sampling errors.

Mittal, M. C.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Some statistical problems inherent in measuring precipitation

A formula permitting calculation of the mean-square error of the mean value of a random variable due to periodic sampling is derived and applied to estimating the sampling error for satellite observation of the mean rainfall during the GARP Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE). The effects of both spatial resolution and frequency of observation on the sampling error are summarized in graphs. It is found that four observations per day are sufficient to determine the monthly mean rainfall over an area of 2.5 deg square (280km x 280km) to within a standard deviation of 5 percent of its mean value; two samples per day would yield an error with a standard deviation slightly less than 10 percent of the mean. A satellite instrument with less frequent sampling may produce significantly greater error in the estimate of monthly mean rainfall.

Flueck, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1982

A scheme for handling arrays in data-flow systems

An examination of the effects of atomicity (higher resolution) on the performance of array processors (data-flow computers) is presented. Data-flow principles are reviewed, noting the reliance on parallel processing using functional languages to specify sequencing of the operations. Techniques are described for eliminating the necessity of copying whole arrays between processing steps, thereby reducing the number of store cycles. The method involves setting whole columns to specific values rather than individual elements. The individual column values can be processed in parallel, i.e., a locally optimized condition exists. A drawback of the system is the need for more low level arguments, to identify the appropriate processing sequences, and high system complexity.

Gaudiot, J.-L.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Restoration of multichannel microwave radiometric images

A constrained iterative image restoration method is applied to multichannel diffraction-limited imagery. This method is based on the Gerchberg-Papoulis algorithm utilizing incomplete information and partial constraints. The procedure is described using the orthogonal projection operators which project onto two prescribed subspaces iteratively. Some of its properties and limitations are also presented. The selection of appropriate constraints was emphasized in a practical application. Multichannel microwave images, each having different spatial resolution, were restored to a common highest resolution to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method. Both noise-free and noisy images were used in this investigation.

Chin, R. T.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Dust Reradiation from NGC 6946

Far infrared measurements of dust reradiation for the spiral galaxy NGC 6946 are presented. The measurements consist of maps and an energy distribution, all made with a resolution of 49 sec. Effective wavelengths are 120 and 170 microns for the maps and 60, 120, and 170 microns for the energy distribution. Much of the reradiating dust has a temperature of 20 K. The amount of starlight reradiated at far infrared wavelengths is approx. 6 x 10 to the 10th power L(solar) or about half the total amount of starlight produced by the nucleus and disk of NGC 6946. A bright nuclear peak centered on a 5' wide disk describes the reradiation morphology at 170 microns. The disk contributes approx. 90% of the total reradiation; the 49 sec diameter region centered on the nucleus gives the small remainder. The morphology of reradiated starlight is compared to the familiar starlight morphology observed at optical wavelengths.

Smith, J.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Measurement of damping of graphite epoxy materials

Work on a damping measurement test apparatus is discussed. The device is designed to excite tube specimens in a vacuum chamber. Also some experiments were conducted on a tube specimen to confirm previously reported results. A table of data showing the results of forced vibration tests using a half ring and a free-free boundary is given. The main purpose was to study the effect of the frequency resolution on the damping ratio measurements.

Crocker, M. J.↗
NASA NTRS1986

The removal of atmospheric effects from remotely sensed near-infrared spectral data

A technique has been developed for removing atmospheric effects from high-resolution remotely sensed 0.7-2.5-micron spectral data. This calibration technique relies solely on the raw spectra data for calibration information. Results are presented for a set of reflectance spectra for rock samples obtained at a distance of about 0.5 km using an InSb spectrophotometer. The calibration technique uses the depths of water-vapor absorption bands in the remotely obtained spectral data to estimate the degree to which atmospheric attenuation has affected these data.

Blake, P. L.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Ultraviolet emission lines and optical photometry of the flare star AT Microscopii

UV spectra of the dwarf flare star binary AT Mic were obtained with the IUE spacecraft over the course of three days in September 1985. A high-resolution short-wavelength spectrum was exposed for 25 h. Line wavelengths, widths, and fluxes were derived from the observed high-resolution spectra, and the effects of the binary structure of AT Mic on the spectral lines were evaluated. The data show that the UV emission-line spectrum is similar in nature to that of flare regions on the sun and other stars. The width of the Mg II k-line shows a good fit with the Wilson-Bappu relation, which thus seems to extend over a very large range of absolute magnitudes.

Elgaroy, O.↗
NASA NTRS1988

A new technique for measuring extragalactic distances

A relatively direct technique of determining extragalactic distances is described. The method relies on measuring the luminosity fluctuations that arise from the counting statistics of the stars contributing the flux in each pixel of a high signal-to-noise CCD image of a galaxy. The amplitude of these fluctuations is inversely proportional to the distance of the galaxy. This approach bypasses most of the successive stages of calibration required in the traditional extragalactic distance ladder; the only serious drawback to this method is that it requires an accurate knowledge of the bright end of the luminosity function. Potentially, this method can produce accurate distances of elliptical galaxies and spiral bulges at distances out to about 20 Mpc. In this paper, it is explained how to calculate the value of the fluctuations, taking into account various sources of contamination and the effects of finite spatial resolution, and the feasibility and limitations of this technique are demonstrated via simulations and CCD images of M 32 and N 3379.

Tonry, John↗
NASA NTRS1988

Measuring H0 and q0 with X-ray lines from galaxy clusters

A new method of measuring angular diameter distances, and hence H0 and q0, by means of X-ray observations of galaxy clusters is proposed. It resembles the method which combines maps of X-ray continuum emission with maps of the Suniaev-Zel'dovich effect, but substitutes measurements of X-ray absorption lines in the spectra of background quasars for the Suniaev-Zel'dovich effect. When the high resolution permitted by the AXAF microcalorimeter becomes available, this method should yield results with significantly smaller uncertainty.

Krolik, Julian H.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Computation of Navier-Stokes equations for three-dimensional flow separation

Supersonic flows over a sharp and a flat-faced blunt fin mounted on a flat plate are simulated numerically. Several basic issues involved in the resultant three-dimensional steady flow separation are studied. Using the same number of grid points, different grid spacings are employed to investigate the effects of a grid resolution on the origin of the line of separation. Various shock strengths are used to study the so-called separated and unseparated boundary layer and to establish the existence or absence of secondary separation. The length of separation ahead of the flat-faced blunt fin, bifurcation of a horseshoe vortex, and the accessibility of a closed-type separation are investigated. The usual interpretation of the flow field from previous studies and new interpretations arising from the present simulation are discussed.

Hung, Ching-Mao↗
NASA NTRS1990

Observations of anthropogenic cloud condensation nuclei

Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) concentrations and spectral measurements obtained with the DRI instantaneous CCN spectrometer (Hudson, 1989) over the last few years are presented. The climatic importance of cloud microphysics has been pointed out. The particles which affect cloud microphysics are cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). The commonly-observed order of magnitude difference in cloud droplet concentrations between maritime and continental air masses (i.e., Squires, 1958) was determined to be caused by systematic differences in the concentrations of CCN between continental and maritime air masses (e.g., Twomey and Wojciechowski, 1969). Twomey (1977) first pointed out that cloud microphysics also affects the radiative properties of clouds. Thus continental and anthropogenic CCN could affect global temperature. Resolution of this Twomey effect requires answers to two questions - whether antropogenic CCN are a significant contribution to atmospheric CCN, and whether they are actually affecting cloud microphysics to an extent which is of climatic importance. The reasons for the contrast between continental and maritime CCN concentration are not understood. The question of the relative importance of anthropogenic CCN is addressed. These observations should shed light on this complex question although further research is being conducted in order to produce more quantitative answers. Accompanying CN measurements made with a TSI 3020 condensation nucleus (CN) counter are also presented.

Hudson, James G.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Effects of engine emissions from high-speed civil transport aircraft: A two-dimensional modeling study, part 2

The AER two-dimensional chemistry-transport model is used to study the effect of supersonic and subsonic aircraft operation in the 2010 atmosphere on stratospheric ozone (O3). The results show that: (1) the calculated O3 response is smaller in the 2010 atmosphere compared to previous calculations performed in the 1980 atmosphere; (2) with the emissions provided, the calculated decrease in O3 column is less than 1 percent; and (3) the effect of model grid resolution on O3 response is small provided that the physics is not modified.

Ko, Malcolm K. W.↗