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At least 1,045 records · Page 58

Enhanced Formation Flying for the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) New Millennium Mission

With scientific objectives for Earth observation programs becoming more ambitious and spacecraft becoming more autonomous, the need for new technical approaches on the feasibility of achieving and maintaining formations of spacecraft has come to the forefront. The trend to develop small low cost spacecraft has led many scientists to recognize the advantage of flying several spacecraft in formation, an example of which is shown in the figure below, to achieve the correlated instrument measurements formerly possible only by flying many instruments on a single large platform. Yet, formation flying imposes additional complications on orbit maintenance, especially when each spacecraft has its own orbit requirements. However, advances in automation proposed by GSFC Codes 550 and 712 allow more of the burden in maneuver planning and execution to be placed onboard the spacecraft, mitigating some of the associated operational concerns. The purpose of this analysis is to develop the fundamentals of formation flying mechanics, concepts for understanding the relative motion of free flying spacecraft, and an operational control theory for formation maintenance of the Earth Observing-1 (EO-l) spacecraft that is part of the New Millennium. Results of this development can be used to determine the appropriateness of formation flying for a particular case as well as the operational impacts. Applications to the Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) Earth Observing System (EOS) and New Millennium (NM) were highly considered in analysis and applications. This paper presents the proposed methods for the guidance and control of the EO-1 spacecraft to formation fly with the Landsat-7 spacecraft using an autonomous closed loop three axis navigation control, GPS, and Cross link navigation support. Simulation results using various fidelity levels of modeling, algorithms developed and implemented in MATLAB, and autonomous 'fuzzy logic' control using AutoCon will be presented. The results of these analysis on the ability to meet mission and formation flying requirements will be presented.

Folta, David↗

Hybrid Modeling Study on Grain Evolution in the Metal Welding Process and Its Potential Lunar Application

Metal is most commonly used structural material in a wide range of spacecraft, and welding is the principal method for joining metal components into functional systems. However, conducting welding experiments under extreme environments—such as microgravity or vacuum conditions in space—is prohibitively expensive and experimentally challenging. To overcome these limitations, multi-physics computational welding models provide a cost-effective and versatile alternative. In this work, the authors have developed a coupled thermal (fluid) microstructure simulation framework to model metal welding under varying gravity conditions. The framework integrates a mixed-mode heat transfer formulation (conduction, convection, and radiation) with molten pool fluid dynamics, enabling accurate prediction of temperature fields and weld-pool geometry. A grain growth model is further incorporated to capture the spatial and temporal evolution of microstructure, including grain size distribution and morphological transitions during solidification. This approach provides detailed insight into molten pool evolution and grain-level microstructure development throughout the welding process. By explicitly parameterizing environmental conditions, the model supports extrapolation to off-Earth manufacturing scenarios such as welding on the lunar surface. Tantalum—chosen in this study due to its high melting point, oxidation resistance, and mechanical stability at elevated temperatures—serves as the material system for model demonstration. Beyond Tantalum, the integrated multi-physics framework offers broad applicability for predictive welding simulations of various structural and refractory metals or alloys used in extreme terrestrial or extraterrestrial environments.

kinetic Monte Carlo (SPPARKS)↗

Return of the Lemnaceae: duckweed as a model plant system in the genomics and postgenomics era

Abstract The aquatic Lemnaceae family, commonly called duckweed, comprises some of the smallest and fastest growing angiosperms known on Earth. Their tiny size, rapid growth by clonal propagation, and facile uptake of labeled compounds from the media were attractive features that made them a well-known model for plant biology from 1950 to 1990. Interest in duckweed has steadily regained momentum over the past decade, driven in part by the growing need to identify alternative plants from traditional agricultural crops that can help tackle urgent societal challenges, such as climate change and rapid population expansion. Propelled by rapid advances in genomic technologies, recent studies with duckweed again highlight the potential of these small plants to enable discoveries in diverse fields from ecology to chronobiology. Building on established community resources, duckweed is reemerging as a platform to study plant processes at the systems level and to translate knowledge gained for field deployment to address some of society’s pressing needs. This review details the anatomy, development, physiology, and molecular characteristics of the Lemnaceae to introduce them to the broader plant research community. We highlight recent research enabled by Lemnaceae to demonstrate how these plants can be used for quantitative studies of complex processes and for revealing potentially novel strategies in plant defense and genome maintenance.

Biochemistry & Molecular Biology↗

Improving Time Step Convergence in an Atmosphere Model With Simplified Physics: The Impacts of Closure Assumption and Process Coupling

Convergence testing is a common practice in the development of dynamical cores of atmospheric models but is not as often exercised for the parameterization of sub-grid physics. An earlier study revealed that the stratiform cloud parameterizations in several predecessors of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) showed strong time-step sensitivity and slower-than-expected convergence when the model's time step was systematically refined. In this work, a simplified atmosphere model is configured that consists of the spectral-element dynamical core of the E3SM atmosphere model coupled with a large-scale condensation parameterization based on commonly used assumptions. This simplified model also resembles E3SM and its predecessors in the numerical implementation of process coupling and shows poor time-step convergence in short ensemble tests. We present a formal error analysis to reveal the expected time-step convergence rate and the conditions for obtaining such convergence. Numerical experiments are conducted to investigate the root causes of convergence problems. We show that revisions in the process coupling and closure assumption help to improve convergence in short simulations using the simplified model; the same revisions applied to a full atmosphere model lead to significant changes in the simulated long-term climate. This work demonstrates that causes of convergence issues in atmospheric simulations can be understood by combining analyses from physical and mathematical perspectives. Addressing convergence issues can help to obtain a discrete model that is more consistent with the intended representation of the physical phenomena.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Summertime Continental Shallow Cumulus Cloud Detection Using GOES‐16 Satellite and Ground‐Based Ceilometer at North Alabama

Abstract Accurate simulations of boundary layer cloud processes remain challenging in Earth system modeling. Observations are essential to evaluate and improve models of such processes. This study introduces a comprehensive validation framework for a satellite‐based detection algorithm of continental shallow cumulus (ShCu) clouds during the daytime, which was initially developed using ground‐based observations of stereo cameras at the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains site (J. Tian et al., 2021, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13122309 , 2022, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021gl097070 ). To validate this algorithm, the framework employs ground‐based ceilometer measurements from North Alabama (NA) where ShCu populations are prevalent. This study first generates clear‐sky surface reflectance maps at NA and identifies ShCu pixels with a detection threshold using Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) reflectance data. The obtained cloud fractions (CFs) are then compared against CFs from a ground‐based ceilometer, considering factors such as observed area differences, satellite parallax issue, and systematic biases. We found that with a detection threshold (∆R) of 0.05, the ShCu detection algorithm is effective for NA, enabling the reproduction of hourly ShCu CFs using GOES. Our framework is straightforward and easily repeatable to evaluate the effectiveness of a ∆R threshold for detecting ShCu clouds in various geographic regions where ceilometers are deployed. This satellite detection of ShCu provides a crucial regional context for ground‐based measurements, facilitating the tracking of convection initiation and its coupling with land surface conditions. Integrating localized ground‐based and regional satellite data will enhance our ability to conduct thorough studies of cloud morphology and land‐atmosphere interactions in North Alabama.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

On the predictability of turbulent fluxes from land: PLUMBER2 MIP experimental description and preliminary results

Accurate representation of the turbulent exchange of carbon, water, and heat between the land surface and the atmosphere is critical for modelling global energy, water, and carbon cycles in both future climate projections and weather forecasts. Evaluation of models' ability to do this is performed in a wide range of simulation environments, often without explicit consideration of the degree of observational constraint or uncertainty and typically without quantification of benchmark performance expectations. We describe a Model Intercomparison Project (MIP) that attempts to resolve these shortcomings, comparing the surface turbulent heat flux predictions of around 20 different land models provided with in situ meteorological forcing evaluated with measured surface fluxes using quality-controlled data from 170 eddy-covariance-based flux tower sites. Predictions from seven out-of-sample empirical models are used to quantify the information available to land models in their forcing data and so the potential for land model performance improvement. Sites with unusual behaviour, complicated processes, poor data quality, or uncommon flux magnitude are more difficult to predict for both mechanistic and empirical models, providing a means of fairer assessment of land model performance. When examining observational uncertainty, model performance does not appear to improve in low-turbulence periods or with energy-balance-corrected flux tower data, and indeed some results raise questions about whether the energy balance correction process itself is appropriate. In all cases the results are broadly consistent, with simple out-of-sample empirical models, including linear regression, comfortably outperforming mechanistic land models. In all but two cases, latent heat flux and net ecosystem exchange of CO 2 are better predicted by land models than sensible heat flux, despite it seeming to have fewer physical controlling processes. Land models that are implemented in Earth system models also appear to perform notably better than stand-alone ecosystem (including demographic) models, at least in terms of the fluxes examined here. The approach we outline enables isolation of the locations and conditions under which model developers can know that a land model can improve, allowing information pathways and discrete parameterisations in models to be identified and targeted for future model development.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Satellite fixed communications service: A forecast of potential domestic demand through the year 2000. Volume 3: Appendices

Voice applications, data applications, video applications, impacted baseline forecasts, market distribution model, net long haul forecasts, trunking earth station definition and costs, trunking space segment cost, trunking entrance/exit links, trunking network costs and crossover distances with terrestrial tariffs, net addressable forecasts, capacity requirements, improving spectrum utilization, satellite system market development, and the 30/20 net accessible market are considered.

Kratochvil, D.↗

Origin of the Greenland Ice Sheet

A climate model resolving the seasonal cycle and the two horizontal dimensions was developed and applied to several problems of current interest. Models of this type are useful when for various reasons a general circulation model experiment is not warranted or not feasible. For example, in cases where the signal to natural variability is small it may be advantageous to first consider such a statistical dynamical model because extremely long runs may be necessary in the application. In this case the simpler statistical dynamical model serves as a pilot study device. The model developed is a thermodynamic model whose solution yields the equilibrium seasonal cycle for the surface temperature field over the globe. The model is essentially a statement of the conservation of heat energy for individual columns of the earth atmosphere system. Various terms such as the infrared radiation flux to space are parameterized with earth radiation budget data from satellites such as Nimbus 6. The primary agent modulating the seasonal cycle amplitude is the heat capacity per unit area which is a strong function of surface type -- ocean surface can store 60 times more heat per unit time than land. By adjusting its few empirical parameters the model can be brought into remarkable agreement with the observed seasonal cycle. The model is then very useful for looking at the dependence of the seasonal cycle of the temperature on such externally defined variables as the Earth's orbital elements (eccentricity, tilt, precession of equinoxes) or the configuration of land-sea geography which can be changed by continental drift.

North, G. R.↗

Orbital Debris: A Chronology

This chronology covers the 37-year history of orbital debris concerns. It tracks orbital debris hazard creation, research, observation, experimentation, management, mitigation, protection, and policy. Included are debris-producing, events; U.N. orbital debris treaties, Space Shuttle and space station orbital debris issues; ASAT tests; milestones in theory and modeling; uncontrolled reentries; detection system development; shielding development; geosynchronous debris issues, including reboost policies: returned surfaces studies, seminar papers reports, conferences, and studies; the increasing effect of space activities on astronomy; and growing international awareness of the near-Earth environment.

Portree, Davis S. F.↗

Long-Term Dynamics of Small Bodies in the Solar System

As part of the NASA Planetary Geology and Geophysics program, Prof. Norm Murray (CITA (Canadian Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics)) and I have been conducting investigations of the long-term dynamics of small bodies in the outer solar system. This grant, and its successor NAG5-10365, supports travel for collaboration by the Investigators and also supports Murray during an annual one month visit to the CfA (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) for further collaboration. In the course of this grant we made a number of advances in solar system dynamics. For example, we developed an analytic model for the origin and consequence of chaos associated with three-body resonances in the asteroid belt. This has been shown to be important for the delivery of near Earth objects (NEO). We later extended this model to three-body resonances among planets. We were able to show that the numerically identified chaos among the outer planets results from a three-body resonance involving Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. The resulting paper was awarded the 1999 Newcomb Cleveland award from the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). This award singles out one paper published in Science each year for distinction. A list of grant-related publications is presented, with abstracts included.

Holman, Matthew J.↗

Long-Term Dynamics of Small Bodies in the Solar System

As part of the NASA Planetary Geology and Geophysics program Prof. Norm Murray (CITA) and I have been conducting investigations of the long-term dynamics of small bodies in the outer solar system. This grant, and its predecessor NAG5- 7761, supports travel for collaboration by the Investigators and also supports Murray during an annual one month visit to the CfA for further collaboration. In the course of this grant we made a number of advances in solar system dynamics. For example, we developed an analytic model for the origin and consequence of chaos associated with three-body resonances in the asteroid belt. This has been shown to be important for the delivery of near Earth objects. We later extended this model to three- body resonances among planets. We were able to show that the numerically identified chaos among the outer planets results from a three-body resonance involving Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. The resulting paper was awarded the 1999 Newcomb Cleveland award from the AAAS. This award singles out one paper published in Science each year for distinction.

Holman, Matthew J.↗

Continental Spatio-Temporal Data Analysis with Linear Spectral Mixture Model Using FOSS

This work demonstrates the development and implementation of a Fully Constrained Least Squares (FCLS) unmixing model developed in C++ programming language with OpenCV package and boost C++ libraries in the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX). Visualization of the results is supported by GRASS GIS and statistical analysis is carried in R in a Linux system environment. FCLS was first tested on computer simulated data with Gaussian noise of various signal-to-noise ratio, and Landsat data of an agricultural scenario and an urban environment using a set of global end members of substrate (soils, sediments, rocks, and non-photosynthetic vegetation), vegetation that includes green photosynthetic plants and dark objects which encompasses absorptive substrate materials, clear water, deep shadows, etc. For the agricultural scenario, a spectrally diverse collection of 11 scenes of Level 1 terrain corrected, cloud free Landsat-5 TM data of Fresno, California, USA were unmixed and the results were validated with the corresponding ground data. To study an urbanized landscape, a clear sky Landsat-5 TM data were unmixed and validated with coincident World View-2 abundance maps (of 2 m spatial resolution) for an area of San Francisco, California, USA. The results were evaluated using descriptive statistics, correlation coefficient, RMSE, probability of success, boxplot and bivariate distribution function. Finally, FCLS was used for sub-pixel land cover analysis of the monthly WELD (Wen-enabled Landsat data) repository from 2008 to 2011 of North America. The abundance maps in conjunction with DMSP-OLS nighttime lights data were used to extract the urban land cover features and analyze their spatial-temporal growth.

Landsat Satellites↗

NASA's Electric Sail Propulsion System Investigations over the Past Three Years

Personnel from NASA's MSFC have been investigating the feasibility of an advanced propulsion system known as the Electric Sail for future scientific missions of exploration. This team initially won a NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) Phase I NASA Innovative Advanced Concept (NIAC) award and then a two year follow-on Phase II NIAC award. This paper documents the findings from this three year investigation. An Electric sail propulsion system is a propellant-less and extremely fast propulsion system that takes advantage of the ions that are present in the solar wind to provide very rapid transit speeds whether to deep space or to the inner solar system. Scientific spacecraft could arrive to Pluto in ~5 years, to the boundary of the solar system in ten to twelve years vs. thirty five plus years it took the Voyager spacecraft. The team's recent focused activities are: 1) Developing a Particle in Cell (PIC) numeric engineering model from the experimental data collected at MSFC's Solar Wind Facility on the interaction between simulated solar wind interaction with a charged bare wire that can be applied to a variety of missions, 2) The development of the necessary tether deployers/tethers to enable successful deployment of multiple, multi km length bare tethers, 3) Determining the different missions that can be captured from this revolutionary propulsion system 4) Conceptual designs of spacecraft to reach various destinations whether to the edge of the solar system, or as Heliophysics sentinels around the sun, or to trips to examine a multitude of asteroids These above activities, once demonstrated analytically, will require a technology demonstration mission (~2021 to 2023) to demonstrate that all systems work together seamlessly before a Heliophysics Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS) could be given the go-ahead. The proposed demonstration mission will require that a small spacecraft must first travel to cis-lunar space as the Electric Sail must be outside of Earth's Magnetic fields to produce thrust. The paper will outline what was done over the past three years from performing various plasma chamber tests to obtain data for the PIC model development, investigation of tether material trades, and conceptual designs of proposed spacecraft.

Wiegmann, Bruce M.↗

Ca-Rich Carbonate Melts: A Regular-Solution Model, with Applications to Carbonatite Magma + Vapor Equilibria and Carbonate Lavas on Venus

A thermochemical model of the activities of species in carbonate-rich melts would be useful in quantifying chemical equilibria between carbonatite magmas and vapors and in extrapolating liquidus equilibria to unexplored PTX. A regular-solution model of Ca-rich carbonate melts is developed here, using the fact that they are ionic liquids, and can be treated (to a first approximation) as interpenetrating regular solutions of cations and of anions. Thermochemical data on systems of alkali metal cations with carbonate and other anions are drawn from the literature; data on systems with alkaline earth (and other) cations and carbonate (and other) anions are derived here from liquidus phase equilibria. The model is validated in that all available data (at 1 kbar) are consistent with single values for the melting temperature and heat of fusion for calcite, and all liquidi are consistent with the liquids acting as regular solutions. At 1 kbar, the metastable congruent melting temperature of calcite (CaCO3) is inferred to be 1596 K, with (Delta)bar-H(sub fus)(calcite) = 31.5 +/- 1 kJ/mol. Regular solution interaction parameters (W) for Ca(2+) and alkali metal cations are in the range -3 to -12 kJ/sq mol; W for Ca(2+)-Ba(2+) is approximately -11 kJ/sq mol; W for Ca(2+)-Mg(2+) is approximately -40 kJ/sq mol, and W for Ca(2+)-La(3+) is approximately +85 kJ/sq mol. Solutions of carbonate and most anions (including OH(-), F(-), and SO4(2-)) are nearly ideal, with W between 0(ideal) and -2.5 kJ/sq mol. The interaction of carbonate and phosphate ions is strongly nonideal, which is consistent with the suggestion of carbonate-phosphate liquid immiscibility. Interaction of carbonate and sulfide ions is also nonideal and suggestive of carbonate-sulfide liquid immiscibility. Solution of H2O, for all but the most H2O-rich compositions, can be modeled as a disproportionation to hydronium (H3O(+)) and hydroxyl (OH(-)) ions with W for Ca(2+)-H3O(+) (approximately) equals 33 kJ/sq mol. The regular-solution model of carbonate melts can be applied to problems of carbonatite magma + vapor equilibria and of extrapolating liquidus equilibria to unstudied systems. Calculations on one carbonatite (the Husereau dike, Oka complex, Quebec, Canada) show that the anion solution of its magma contained an OH mole fraction of (approximately) 0.07, although the vapor in equilibrium with the magma had P(H2O) = 8.5 x P(CO2). F in carbonatite systems is calculated to be strongly partitioned into the magma (as F(-)) relative to coexisting vapor. In the Husereau carbonatite magma, the anion solution contained an F(-) mole fraction of (approximately) 6 x 10(exp -5).

Treiman, Allan H.↗

Coupling the Community Atmospheric Model (CAM) with the Statistical Spectral Interpolation (SSI) System under ESMF

The first set of interoperability experiments illustrates the role ESMF can play in integrating the national Earth science resources. Using existing data assimilation technology from NCEP and the National Weather Service, the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) was able to ingest conventional and remotely sensed observations, a capability that could open the door to using CAM for weather as well as climate prediction. CAM, which includes land surface capabilities, was developed by NCAR, with key components from GSFC. In this talk we will describe the steps necessary for achieving the coupling of these two systems.

daSilva, Arlindo↗

Application of Machine-Learning Algorithms for On-Board Asteroid Shape Model Determination

The Application of Machine-learning Algorithms for On-board Asteroid Shape Model Determination project will develop an innovative system for spacecraft navigation to expand the capability of small spacecraft to meet the critical challenges associated with small-body exploration. Such challenges include accurate navigation in a microgravity environment and precision targeting of particular locations on an asteroid surface for sample collection. This on-board system will cut the computational "umbilical" back to Earth-currently necessary for the generation of a global shape model that requires thousands of images with sufficient resolution and adequate variation of incidence and emission angles, processed manually by a team of experts on Earth for several months. Small satellites have limited bandwidth and are unable to downlink the data volume required for this processing, restricting their ability to perform deep-space asteroid exploration.

Machine learning algorithms↗

Observing the Global Water Cycle from Space

This paper presents an approach to measuring all major components of the water cycle from space. Key elements of the global water cycle are discussed in terms of the storage of water-in the ocean, air, cloud and precipitation, in soil, ground water, snow and ice, and in lakes and rivers, and in terms of the global fluxes of water between these reservoirs. Approaches to measuring or otherwise evaluating the global water cycle are presented, and the limitations on known accuracy for many components of the water cycle are discussed, as are the characteristic spatial and temporal scales of the different water cycle components. Using these observational requirements for a global water cycle observing system, an approach to measuring the global water cycle from space is developed. The capabilities of various active and passive microwave instruments are discussed, as is the potential of supporting measurements from other sources. Examples of space observational systems, including TRMM/GPM precipitation measurement, cloud radars, soil moisture, sea surface salinity, temperature and humidity profiling, other measurement approaches and assimilation of the microwave and other data into interpretative computer models are discussed to develop the observational possibilities. The selection of orbits is then addressed, for orbit selection and antenna size/beamwidth considerations determine the sampling characteristics for satellite measurement systems. These considerations dictate a particular set of measurement possibilities, which are then matched to the observational sampling requirements based on the science. The results define a network of satellite instrumentation systems, many in low Earth orbit, a few in geostationary orbit, and all tied together through a sampling network that feeds the observations into a data-assimilative computer model.

Hildebrand, P. H.↗

The Earth's Exosphere and Its Response to Space Weather

Neutral-Plasma charge exchange is a fundamental physical process that occurs ubiquitously across the universe. In geospace, charge exchange occurs in the Earth’s topside ionosphere, polar wind, plasmasphere, inner magnetosphere, and magnetosheath. Past and current space missions have profiled plasma and electromagnetic characteristics in various parts of the Earth’s magnetospheric system. However, observations of the exosphere, i.e., neutrals above 500 km altitude, are still sparse and, in some regions, non-existent, which limits our understanding of the neutral contribution to the overall dynamics of the geospace environment. Cold exospheric neutrals (< 10 eV) play an important role in the Sun-Earth interaction. Variability of exospheric density provides key information of the Earth’s atmospheric loss under dynamic space environment conditions. Various neutral species and their density variations in the polar wind can alter ion outflow patterns, modifying global magnetospheric dynamics. Exospheric neutrals also provide an energy sink for the inner magnetosphere by creating Energetic Neutral Atoms (ENAs) through charge exchange with high-energy ring current ions, which subsequently leave our geospace system unimpeded by magnetic fields. Exospheric neutrals also provide a means to observe the global interaction of the solar wind – magnetosphere, through global imaging of the system via ENAs (e.g., the TWINS and IMAGE missions) and soft X-rays (e.g., the upcoming LEXI and SMILE missions), the byproducts of neutral-plasma charge exchange. In the coming decade, we advocate that our community needs to increase our exploration of the neutral populations in the outermost reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere. It is imperative that we improve both in-situ and remote-sensing technologies for measuring key neutral species in our exosphere. We also encourage dedicated exosphere missions and to stimulate model developments of our exosphere and its interaction with the co-located magnetospheric system and neighboring Ionosphere - Thermosphere - Mesosphere system.

Hyunju Connor↗