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At least 127 records · Page 7

Analysis of RAE-1 inversion

The RAE-1 spacecraft inversion performed October 31, 1972 is described based upon the in-orbit dynamical data in conjunction with results obtained from previously developed computer simulation models. The computer simulations used are predictive of the satellite dynamics, including boom flexing, and are applicable during boom deployment and retraction, inter-phase coast periods, and post-deployment operations. Attitude data, as well as boom tip data, were analyzed in order to obtain a detailed description of the dynamical behavior of the spacecraft during and after the inversion. Runs were made using the computer model and the results were analyzed and compared with the real time data. Close agreement between the actual recorded spacecraft attitude and the computer simulation results was obtained.

Hedland, D. A.↗

Analysis of the 31 Oct 1972 interplanetary shock wave and associated unusual phenomena

We analyze in detail the disturbed time period Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 1972 using magnetic field, plasma, and energetic particle data as well as magnetic field data. In particular, we discuss an interplanetary forward shock wave accompanied by a traditional shock-spike event in the energetic particles, a large tangential discontinuity correlated with a geomagnetic storm main phase, and a reverse interplanetary shock. This forward and reverse shock pair was caused by a 2N solar flare which occurred some 47 hours earlier. We also discuss an unusual rarefaction in the solar wind following (and probably related to) the shock pair, wherein the Alfven Mach number abruptly decreased from about 4.5 to about 1.5, allowing the earth's bow shock to move outward at least 20 earth radii beyond its nominal position.

Ipavich, F. M.↗

Visual/motion simulation of CTOL flare and touchdown comparing data obtained from two model board display systems

Acquisition of a modern terrain model board display system for 'out-the-window' scene presentation has allowed for the repetition of an evaluation study of combined visual/motion cues for CTOL flare and touchdown control that was originally carried out on a 1965 vintage landing display system. The motion drive system used in both studies was a nonlinear coordinated adaptive washout based on the method of continuous steepest descent optimization. Comparisons of the results of the studies present flare and touchdown data, as well as dynamic response data, from the two visual landing systems. The new visual system also allowed for the repetition, under visual conditions, of a subjective comparison of a linear and a nonlinear motion washout method done previously under instrument conditions.

Parrish, R. V.↗

Preliminary evaluation of Nimbus-6 sounding data

Preliminary results on Nimbus-6 moisture and temperature soundings are discussed. The satellite takes readings of cloud-tracked winds and temperatures (with vertical resolution) in microwave and IR (15 micron and 4 micron) channels. The data are compared with ground-based radiosonde data. Isotherm patterns and thickness patterns derived from satellite data and radiosonde data are compared, as well as data on precipitable water. Satellite soundings are found to present a realistic picture of thermal and moisture fields in the vicinity of large-scale disturbances, and can be useful in initialization for large-scale numerical prediction models when properly combined with data from other sources. Limitations in vertical resolution are noted.

Tracton, M. S.↗

Equatorial ionospheric currents derived from MAGSAT data

The MAGSAT data on the three component's of the geomagnetic field are subjected to ring current correction and crustal anomaly elimination near the dip equator. The evidence of a strong west east electrojet current below the satellite height (approximately 350 km) is confirmed. Strong evidence of east-west component of the field suggests the existence of a vertical current originating at the jet level and extending upwards. A model calculation shows that such a current system can explain the satellite data as well as the ground data.

Roy, M.↗

Advanced microwave soil moisture studies

Comparisons of low level L-band brightness temperature (TB) and thermal infrared (TIR) data as well as the following data sets: soil map and land cover data; direct soil moisture measurement; and a computer generated contour map were statistically evaluated using regression analysis and linear discriminant analysis. Regression analysis of footprint data shows that statistical groupings of ground variables (soil features and land cover) hold promise for qualitative assessment of soil moisture and for reducing variance within the sampling space. Dry conditions appear to be more conductive to producing meaningful statistics than wet conditions. Regression analysis using field averaged TB and TIR data did not approach the higher sq R values obtained using within-field variations. The linear discriminant analysis indicates some capacity to distinguish categories with the results being somewhat better on a field basis than a footprint basis.

Dalsted, K. J.↗

A diagnostic study of eddy-mean flow interactions during FGGE SOP-1

Eliassen-Palm (EP) diagrams have been shown to be very useful diagnostics in both the troposphere and the stratosphere. However, the idea that the EP flux divergence is the sole forcing of the mean wind by the eddies can be misleading. A time series of the time rate of change of the zonal mean wind and the EP flux divergence shows that the two quantities were not well correlated during the FGGE special observing period (SOP-1, winter 1979). Calculation of the residual in the zonal momentum equation reveals that considerable negative acceleration (drag) is required to complete the momentum balance in some regions. This residual indicates that not all terms are well represented in atmospheric data sets, and may be largely due to the breaking of vertically propagating gravity waves near the tropopause. Eliassen-Palm diagrams are presented for the FGGE data, as well as Oort's 11-year climatology. The Oort EP diagrams serve as a standard with which to compare other EP diagrams. The FGGE year is shown to be very similar to climatology. A consistent method of displaying the EP flux vectors and divergence is suggested, which has advantages over previous methods.

Baldwin, M. P.↗

Statistical analysis of failure data on controllers and SSME turbine blade failures

The expressions for the maximum likelihood functions are given when the failure data are censored at a given point or at multiple points, or when the data come in groups. Different models applicable to failure data are presented with their characteristics. A graphical method of distinguishing different models by using cumulative hazard fucnction is discussed. For the failure data on controllers the model is determined by cumulative hazard function and chi-square goodness of fit. Using the Weibull Model the maximum likelihood estimators of the shape parameter and the failure rate parameter are obtained. The confidence intervals, meantime between failures, and B1 are determined. Similarly, for the data on Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) blade failures the maximum likelihood estimators are obtained for the Weibull parameters. The variances, confidence intervals, meantime between failures, and reliability are determined. The analysis is performed under assumption of grouped data as well as randomly placed data.

Patil, S. A.↗

Heavy ion track-structure calculations for radial dose in arbitrary materials

The delta-ray theory of track structure is compared with experimental data for the radial dose from heavy ion irradiation. The effects of electron transmission and the angular dependence of secondary electron ejection are included in the calculations. Several empirical formulas for electron range and energy are compared in a wide variety of materials in order to extend the application of the track-structure theory. The model of Rudd for the secondary electron-spectrum in proton collisions, which is based on a modified classical kinematics binary encounter model at high energies and a molecular promotion model at low energies, is employed. For heavier projectiles, the secondary electron spectrum is found by scaling the effective charge. Radial dose calculations for carbon, water, silicon, and gold are discussed. The theoretical data agreed well with the experimental data.

Cucinotta, Francis A.↗

Giotto ion mass spectrometer measurements at comet P/Grigg-Skjellerup

The Giotto ion mass spectrometer high-intensity spectrometer (IMS-HIS) measured fluxes of ions from about 260,000 km before (1008:37 UT spacecraft time) to about 86,000 km after (1701:33 UT spacecraft time) closest approach to comet P/Grigg-Skjellerup during the encounter on July 10, 1992. Although the HIS sensor was not designed to measure protons, these ions were measured far from the comet. Close in to the comet, the ions observed were probably also protons, although heavier ions cannot be completely ruled out. Considerable temporal structure appears in the data, well-correlated with the data of other instruments onboard, especially those of the magnetometer. In particular, the ion count rate correlates with the direction of the magnetic field. This strong modulation at the water group ion cyclotron period (approx. 90 s) inside the inbound bow wave indicates a very narrow ion pitch angle distribution. Hence at Grigg-Skjellerup the ions appear to experience very little pitch angle scattering. This may result from strong compression in the rapidly increasing magnetic field.

Goldstein, R.↗

Propagation issues in the Globalstar system

The purpose of the Globalstar system is to provide reliable, timely space based telecommunications services for fixed, handheld and mobile user telephones throughout the world. The system supports communication services for voice and data as well as low rate data services such as paging. The Globalstar system can also support user position determination. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief introduction of the Globalstar system followed by a discussion of the propagation issues in the Globalstar system design.

Prescott, Toby↗

Is the bang worth the buck? A RAID performance study

Expecting a high data delivery rate as well as data protection, the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications procured a RAID system to house image files for image delivery applications. A study was undertaken to determine the configuration of the RAID system that would provide for the fastest retrieval of image files. Average retrieval times with single and with concurrent users were measured for several stripe widths and several numbers of disks for RAID levels 0, 0+1 and 5. These are compared to each other and to average retrieval times for non-RAID configurations of the same hardware. Although the study in ongoing, a few conclusions have emerged regarding the tradeoffs among the different configurations with respect to file retrieval speed and cost.

Hauser, Susan E.↗

Validation of Global Climatologies of Trace Gases Using NASA Global Tropospheric Experiment (GTE) Data

Methane is an important trace gas because it is a greenhouse gas that affects the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere. It is produced from biological and anthropogenic sources, and is increasing globally at a rate of approximately 0.6% per year [Climate Change 1992, IPCC]. By using National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (NOAA/CMDL) ground station data, a global climatology of methane values was produced. Unfortunately, because the NOAA/CMDL ground stations are so sparse, the global climatology is low resolution. In order to compensate for this low resolution data, it was compared to in-situ flight data obtained from the NASA Global Tropospheric Experiment (GTE). The smoothed ground station data correlated well with the flight data. Thus, for the first time it is shown that the smoothing process used to make global contours of methane using the ground stations is a plausible way to approximate global atmospheric concentrations of the gas. These verified climatologies can be used for testing large-scale models of chemical production, destruction, and transport. This project develops the groundwork for further research in building global climatologies from sparse ground station data and studying the transport and distribution of trace gases.

Courchaine, Brian↗

Iterative edge- and wavelet-based image registration of AVHRR and GOES satellite imagery

Most automatic registration methods are either correlation-based, feature-based, or a combination of both. Examples of features which can be utilized for automatic image registration are edges, regions, corners, or wavelet-extracted features. In this paper, we describe two proposed approaches, based on edge or edge-like features, which are very appropriate to highlight regions of interest such as coastlines. The two iterative methods utilize the Normalized Cross-Correlation of edge and wavelet features and are applied to such problems as image-to-map registration, landmarking, and channel-to-channel co-registration, utilizing test data, AVHRR data, as well as GOES image data.

LeMoigne, Jacqueline↗

Towards an intercomparison of automated registration algorithms for multiple source remote sensing data

The first step in the integration of multiple data is registration, either relative image-to-image registration or absolute geo-registration, to a map or a fixed coordinate system. As the need for automating registration techniques is recognized, we feel that there is a need to survey all the registration methods which may be applicable to Earth and space science problems and to evaluate their performances on a large variety of existing remote sensing data as well as on simulated data of soon-to-be-flown instruments. In this paper we will describe: 1) the operational toolbox which we are developing and which will consist in some of the most important registration techniques; and 2) the quantitative intercomparison of the different methods, which will allow a user to select the desired registration technique based on this evaluation and the visualization of the registration results.

LeMoigne, Jacqueline↗

Mapping Environmental Contaminants at Ray Mine, AZ

Airborne Visible and InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) data was collected over Ray Mine as part of a demonstration project for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the Advanced Measurement Initiative (AMI). The overall goal of AMI is to accelerate adoption and application of advanced measurement technologies for cost effective environmental monitoring. The site was selected to demonstrate the benefit to EPA in using advanced remote sensing technologies for the detection of environmental contaminants due to the mineral extraction industry. The role of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in this pilot study is to provide data as well as performing calibration, data analysis, and validation of the AVIRIS results. EPA is also interested in developing protocols that use commercial software to perform such work on other high priority EPA sites. Reflectance retrieval was performed using outputs generated by the MODTRAN radiative transfer model and field spectra collected for the purpose of calibration. We are presenting advanced applications of the ENVI software package using n-Dimensional Partial Unmixing to identify image-derived endmembers that best match target materials reference spectra from multiple spectral libraries. Upon identification of the image endmembers the Mixture Tuned Match Filter algorithm was applied to map the endmembers within each scene. Using this technique it was possible to map four different mineral classes that are associated with mine generated acid waste.

McCubbin, Ian↗

Modeling Film-Coolant Flow Characteristics at the Exit of Shower-Head Holes

The coolant flow characteristics at the hole exits of a film-cooled blade are derived from an earlier analysis where the hole pipes and coolant plenum were also discretized. The blade chosen is the VKI rotor with three staggered rows of shower-head holes. The present analysis applies these flow characteristics at the shower-head hole exits. A multi-block three-dimensional Navier-Stokes code with Wilcox's k-omega model is used to compute the heat transfer coefficient on the film-cooled turbine blade. A reasonably good comparison with the experimental data as well as with the more complete earlier analysis where the hole pipes and coolant plenum were also gridded is obtained. If the 1/7th power law is assumed for the coolant flow characteristics at the hole exits, considerable differences in the heat transfer coefficient on the blade surface, specially in the leading-edge region, are observed even though the span-averaged values of h (heat transfer coefficient based on T(sub o)-T(sub w)) match well with the experimental data. This calls for span-resolved experimental data near film-cooling holes on a blade for better validation of the code.

Garg, Vijay K.↗

The Nearest GHz Peaked-Spectrum Radio Galaxy, PKS 1718-649

In this paper we identify PKS 1718-649, at a distance of 56 Mpc (z = 0.014; H(sub o) = 75 km/s/Mpc, q(sub o) = 0), as the nearest GHz peaked-spectrum (GPS) radio galaxy, more than four times closer than any previously known. Extensive observations at radio wavelengths with the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the Southern Hemisphere VLBI Experiment array, and the Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope have allowed us to determine the properties of the radio source: PKS 1718-649 consists of two compact sub-pc-scale components separated by approximately 2 pc, the overall radio polarization is low, and the radio spectrum is peaked near 3 GHz. Order-of-magnitude agreement between the quantitative model for GPS sources of Bicknell et al. and the radio data we present, as well as data at optical wavelengths from the literature, raises the interesting possibility that PKS 1718-649 may be frustrated in its development by the nuclear environment of its host galaxy, NGC 6328. The model of Bicknell et al. suggests free-free absorption as an explanation of the PKS 1718-649 radio spectrum. However, both free-free absorption and synchrotron self-absorption mechanisms are plausible for this source and both may contribute to the overall radio spectrum. PKS 1718-649 provides evidence to strengthen the speculative suggestion that GPS sources arise as a consequence of galaxy merger activity.

Tingay, S. J.↗