Commercial Missions Research Articles

Preface to the special issue on the Alphasat Aldo Paraboni propagation experiment

Preface to the special issue on the Alphasat Aldo Paraboni propagation experiment

Barriers to grassroots innovation: The phenomenon of social-commercial-cultural trilemmas in remote indigenous art centres

Despite substantial research on grassroots innovation, there is a lack of understanding on the barriers to grassroots innovation. We examine paradoxes that arise as a consequence of multiple, often conflicting, objectives in remote art centres, social enterprises that are key sites for grassroots innovations. We investigate how social, commercial and cultural logics in remote Indigenous art centres contribute to an on-going trilemma that acts as a barrier to the development of grassroots innovation. We also explore the challenges and opportunities managers encounter in reconciling these multiple, often conflicting, logics. The results indicate that although art centres have dual social and commercial missions, cultural differences between Indigenous arts workers, and non-Indigenous managers, contribute to social-commercial tensions that social enterprises experience. This manifests in a social-commercial-cultural trilemma which inhibits grassroots innovation. The results also show this trilemma provides opportunities for arts workers with latent managerial capacity to transition to management and evolve the traditional Indigenous art centre model to Indigenous managed art centres. The research also gives examples of how these trilemmas can be resolved, in particular via working through key Indigenous family groups and by providing better support and mentoring for non-Indigenous art centre managers. In so doing, remote Indigenous art centres are able to serve as special but important sites of grassroots and inclusive innovation by supporting viable development pathways for socioeconomic improvements in remote Indigenous communities in Australia.

AOCS Requirements and Practical Limitations for High-Speed Communications on Small Satellites

In recent years, an increasing number of countries have shown a growing interest in developing their indigenous space capacity building through national small satellite programs. These satellites, which were initially focused on educational and training missions, currently are more scientific and operational-oriented. Thus, small satellite missions are being considered not only as educational tools but also as technological demonstrators or, even, mature enough for commercial and scientific missions, which might generate a huge amount of data to be transmitted to the ground segment. Therefore, an increasing demand on channel capacity will be needed for downloading the generated housekeeping and scientific data for missions based on small satellites. This paper analyses the communication subsystem of a real Cubesat. The influence of geometrical parameters is rigorously calculated both in the signal-to-noise ratio and in the capacity to transmit information. Subsequently, which parameters of the radio link can be modified to increase the transmission capacity, including the pointing requirements and its practical implementation, is studied. Finally, and as a future line, the technical feasibility of using optical links on small satellites that might greatly increase the transmission capacity, including the satellite pointing problems that presents, is presented. In conclusion, this paper presents a rigorous calculation in different frequency bands of the signal-to-noise ratio and the pointing accuracy that is needed to achieve the maximum transmission speed from the satellite to the ground station, and therefore the requirements that the Attitude and Orbital Control Systems (AOCS) must have, as well as the limitations of current systems.

Do Chambers of Commerce have an added value in the web 2.0 era? Commercial missions by the Chamber

This study goes through the history of Chambers of Commerce, analysing some of the reasons for their appearance as well as their role throughout time. It moves forward to analyse the history and development of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce (BCC), founded in 1886. Emphasis on the international department of the BCC is made to evaluate whether the Internet and the web 2.0 era have jeopardised the internationalisation services offered to Catalan firms. Through five case studies of firms having participated in commercial missions of the BCC, the strategic added values of this service are analysed. The study concludes that the differential traits and added values are: the status of public law entity, the built-in worldwide chamber network, the affordable price, and the direct channel with governmental entities to obtain subsidies for Catalan firms.

AL-QARDH AL-HASAN: SOFT AND BENEVOLENT LOAN PADA BANK ISLAM

Akad Al-Qardh is an agreement or agreement between the two parties, whereby the first party provides assets or provides property in the sense of lending to a second party as a borrower of money or a person who receives assets that can be billed or reimbursed, in other words lend property to other people who need fast funds without expecting rewards. For its practice in the Islamic banking of Al Qardh Al Hasan serves as a bailout fund for a short period of time, the customer will return it quickly, as a facility to obtain funds quickly because the customer cannot withdraw the funds, for example due to being stranded in deposits, as a facility to help small and medium businesses or social community. The benefits of aqad al-qardh are helping customers who need fast funds, as well as one of the giver characteristics between Islamic banks and conventional banks which contain social missions, in addition to commercial missions, improve good image and increase community loyalty to Islamic banks.

NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative: Enabling broad access to space

CubeSats are playing an increasingly larger role in exploration, technology demonstrations, scientific research and educational investigations at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These miniature satellites provide a low-cost platform for NASA missions, including planetary space exploration; Earth observation; and technology demonstrations such as cutting-edge laser communications, energy storage, in-space propulsion and autonomous movement capabilities. They also provide educators with an inexpensive means to engage students in all phases of satellite development, operation and exploitation through real world, hands-on research and development experience on NASA-funded and non-NASA funded opportunities. These advancements in turn are propelling an emerging and fast-growing commercial industry to support a wide application user base.For the past seven years, NASA has enabled educational institutions, universities, non-profit organizations and agency field centers to launch these small research satellites through the CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) for Educational Launch of Nanosatellite (ELaNa) missions. Launch opportunities are made available via existing launch services of government payloads on previously planned launches, commercial missions or as International Space Station deployments, as well as dedicated CubeSat launches from the newly selected Venture Class Launch Services contracts. CSLI establishes Cooperative Research and Development Agreements with satellite development partners, which supports NASA's emphasis on public-private partnerships.Since the inception of the CubeSat Launch Initiative, NASA has selected over 162 CubeSat missions from 93 unique organizations and has launched 66 CubeSats into orbit on seventeen ELaNa Missions. This paper provides a status and overview of missions and community involvement, launch vehicles, and technology and science focus areas. It also details the methods employed by NASA to deliver CSLI, requirements for participation, and next steps for the initiative.

The illusive nature of social enterprise at the base of the pyramid

PurposeBased on six case studies of self-proclaimed social enterprises (SEs) in Kenya, this paper aims to critically assess the “SE” concept in a base of the pyramid (BoP) context.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on multiple case studies to challenge traditional notions of SE. Six SEs operating at the BoP in Kenya are analysed. Interviews are conducted with entrepreneurs from each enterprise, during which the enterprises’ business models are mapped and scrutinised.FindingsBased on the six case studies, the paper argues that the SE concept is challenged in a BoP context: the six Kenyan SEs viewed social and commercial orientation as equally important and mutually supportive; viewed social orientation as a competitive advantage; and did not consider social objectives as harmonious. These findings corroborate key claims of the BoP literature, e.g. that it is not possible meaningfully to distinguish social and commercial missions at the BoP as they are intertwined; that any company succeeding at the BoP will have a social impact; and that the pursuit of some social objectives may undermine the achievement of other social objectives. The overall conclusion of the paper is that in BoP environments, the concept of SE becomes illusive.Originality/valueThis paper adds perspective to existing literature on SE at the BoP and provides empirical evidence that can help shape the understanding of social business activities in East Africa. The paper demonstrates that in BoP environments, the boundaries between social and commercial enterprise become illusive.

Multiple underwater target positioning with optimally placed acoustic surface sensor networks

In an increasing number of scientific and commercial mission scenarios at sea, it is required to simultaneously localize a group of underwater targets. The latter may include moored systems, autonomous vehicles, and even human divers. For reasons that have to do with the unavailability of Global Positioning System underwater, cost reduction, and simplicity of operation, there is currently a surge of interest in the development of range-based multiple target localization systems that rely on the computation of the distances between the targets and a number of sensor nodes deployed at the ocean surface, equipped with acoustic range measuring devices. In the case of a single target, there is a wealth of literature on the problem of optimal acoustic sensor placement to maximize the information available for target localization using trilateration methods. In the case of multiple targets, however, the literature is scarce. Motivated by these considerations, we address the problem of optimal sensor placement for multiple underwater target positioning. In this setup, we are naturally led to a multiple objective optimization problem, the solution of which allows for the analysis of the trade-offs involved in the localization of the targets simultaneously. To this end, we resort to tools from estimation theory and multi-objective optimization. For each target, the function to be minimized (by proper choice of the sensor configuration) is related to the determinant of the corresponding Fisher information matrix, which yields information on the minimum possible covariance of the error with which the position of the target can be estimated using any non-biased estimator. To deal with the fact that more than one target is involved, we exploit the concept of multiple objective Pareto-optimal solutions to characterize the best possible accuracy with which each of the targets can be positioned, given constraints on the desired positioning accuracy of the other targets. Simulation examples illustrate how, for a three-sensor network and two targets, it is possible to define an optimal sensor configuration that yields large positioning accuracy for both targets simultaneously, using convex optimization tools. When more than two targets are involved, however, more than three sensors are required to exploit an adequate trade-off of the accuracy with which each target can be positioned by resorting to non-convex and Pareto-optimization tools. We show how in this case the optimal sensor configurations depend on the Pareto weights assigned to each of the targets, as well as on the number of sensors, the number of targets, and the uncertainty with which the positions of the targets are known a priori.

Emergent models and strategies of social enterprises in China

Many nonprofits are turning to commercial strategies to enhance their income. While previous research identified challenges social enterprises face in balancing commercial and social missions, little is known about how Chinese social enterprises respond to similar challenges in meeting the double bottom line. Using 16 cases studies, this study identified different types of social enterprises extant in the Chinese context, and examined the strategies they adopt. We found that the fee-for-service is the most common operational model, and that despite attempts of heavy state influence, Chinese SEs were able to demonstrate their resilience by diversifying their operational models. Implications for China’s social work development are discussed.

Optimal multiple underwater target localization and tracking using two surface acoustic ranging sensors

In many scientific and commercial missions at sea, it is of crucial importance to localize one ore more targets underwater. This objective meets with difficulties due to the unavailability of GPS underwater and the high cost of the equipment classically used for target localization. For these reasons, there has been a surge of interest in the problem of range-based underwater target localization, defined as that of localizing a group of unknown (fixed/moving) targets resorting to surface vehicles (called trackers) equipped with sensors capable of measuring their distances to the targets. In this setup, the surface sensor nodes should be placed according to some optimality criterion aimed at maximizing the information available for target tracking. In addition, the number of sensor nodes should be kept to a minimum in order to avoid the use of a complex and expensive network of vehicles that must be positioned and controlled in a coordinated manner. Motivated by these considerations, in this paper we study the problem of multiple target localization using two trackers and present a constructive method to generate a family of optimal waypoints for the trackers. The use of two surface sensors is motivated by the fact that a single surface sensor does not provide enough positioning accuracy for multiple target localization simultaneously. For two and three targets, we provide a family of analytical solutions for optimal sensor node placements. Further, the proposed solutions can be extended to more than three targets under some well-defined constraints on the target configuration. The optimal sensor positions are derived by maximizing the determinants of appropriately defined Fisher information matrices associated with each of the targets. It is shown that the optimal sensor configuration thus obtained lends itself to an interesting and useful geometrical interpretation. Simulation examples illustrate the results derived.

From Empire to Eurasia: Politics, Scholarship, and Ideology in Russian Eurasianism, 1920s–1930s by Sergey Glebov

Reviewed by: From Empire to Eurasia: Politics, Scholarship, and Ideology in Russian Eurasianism, 1920s–1930s by Sergey Glebov Stefan Wiederkehr (bio) Sergey Glebov, From Empire to Eurasia: Politics, Scholarship, and Ideology in Russian Eurasianism, 1920s–1930s (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2017). 237 pp. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 978-0-87580-750-8. Sergey Glebov offers the reader a brilliant account of one of the most fascinating intellectual movements in the Russian emigration. The Eurasian thinkers were young exiles who, at the beginning of the 1920s, argued that the former Russian Empire constituted a third continent – "Eurasia" – between Europe and Asia and that Western institutions such as parliamentarian democracy and capitalism were inadequate for this continent. Glebov analyzes Eurasianism based on more archival sources than anyone before and persuasively places the thinking of the Eurasianists in the struggles of modernity in late imperial Russia and Europe. He argues that Eurasianism was an "imperial phenomenon" not only in the sense of an ideology of restoring the empire but "the product of the imperial situation, of the unevenness and heterogeneity of the social and cultural space of imperial Russia, in which the conspicuous absence of bourgeois institutions coexisted with the rising critique of the philistine bourgeois order by [End Page 341] intellectuals, and the aristocratic and religious rejection of the universal aspirations of modernity combined with a critique of Eurocentrism and cultural colonialism" (P. 6). In contrast to earlier research, he stresses the heterogeneity of Eurasianism and the fact that the contradicting interpretations and ideas of its leaders overlapped only for a short time in the 1920s. It is this period of a basic consensus among various currents within Eurasianism that Glebov examines. The revival of Eurasianism in post-Soviet Russia is beyond the scope of his study. In the first chapter "Exiles from the Silver Age," Glebov sketches the biographies of the Eurasianists' leading troika and other important participants in the Eurasian movement. He stresses the backgrounds of Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetskoi (1890–1938), Petr Petrovich Suvchinskii (1892–1985), and Petr Nikolaevich Savitskii (1895–1968) in Russian Silver Age culture and the diversity of their origin. The Trubetskois belonged to the highest echelons of Moscow's aristocracy. At the same time, some of them were eminent philosophers with established academic positions and networks. Nikolai Trubetskoi's father, Sergei, was the first elected rector of Moscow University and instrumental in the liberal movement in the late Russian Empire. Suvchinskii's father was a successful businessman in the oil sector. The family of Russified Polish-Ukrainian nobles lived in St. Petersburg and had an estate near Kiev. Savitskii originated from the section of the Ukrainian gentry that was loyal to the imperial state and the Russian language. His father was active in the Zemstvo movement and became a member of the State Council in 1906. The three later Eurasianists had also opted for diverse educational and career paths. Trubetskoi published his first scholarly article in Etnograficheskoe obozrenie at the age of fifteen, studied linguistics in Moscow, and was well on the way to a brilliant academic career when the Bolsheviks took power. Suvchinskii was educated at the famous Tenishev School in St. Petersburg, took early music lessons with famous teachers, and in 1915 became the coeditor of one of Russia's leading music journals, which marked the beginning of his activity as a cultural entrepreneur. Savitskii studied economics with Petr Berngardovich Struve at the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute. After graduating in 1916 he entered the diplomatic corps and became secretary to the Russian commercial mission in Norway. Therefore, the personal backgrounds of the three principal figures of Eurasianism may actually be more diverse than previous research suggested. They did, however, belong to the privileged rich and well-educated elite of the [End Page 342] Russian Empire, as did all the other key Eurasianists. What they also shared was the common experience of biographical rupture by the triple catastrophe of World War I, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Civil War, which eventually forced them into exile. That said, in the second chapter, "The Mongol-Bolshevik Revolution," Glebov argues that rather than autocracy, the Eurasianist generational rhetoric attacked the still weak bourgeois society and the radical...

Technology Enabling Interplanetary Trajectories for Nanospacecraft

Following their success in low Earth orbit, nanospacecraft weighing less than 25 kg may soon contribute to the exploration of the Solar System. This paper outlines the necessary technologies that enable these small satellites to be placed on an interplanetary trajectory. Propulsion is a key aspect of this problem but is only part of it; because a nanospacecraft does not choose its launcher and its injection orbit, launch opportunities and propulsion systems must be considered together. Specifications of present and upcoming electric thrusters and the limits of electric propulsion are described. Especially, the use of such nanothrusters on a nanospacecraft are considered with the realistic constraint of limited thrusting time, which restricts the very large that can be obtained otherwise. Then, given the present state of rideshare opportunities along scientific or commercial missions, the paper analyzes the possibility of nanospacecraft escaping Earth on their own from common orbits. The paper concludes on technological and system developments required for nanospacecraft to change the paradigm of interplanetary Solar System exploration.

SUSTAINABLE MICROFINANCE AND GLOBAL PERFORMANCE PROPOSAL FOR A DECISION-MAKING SUPPORT TOOL

Outreach and financial sustainability are “the two basic drivers” of the microfinance industry. These two missions seem contradictory and their complementarity is the main challenge of microfinance institutions (MFIs) around the world. A challenge that is still current and in the center of debates between two opposing theoretical visions; the social welfare approach and the institutionalist approach, which Morduch refers to as the “schism of microfinance”. In other words, MFIs are exposed to tradeoffs between their two objectives, with the risk of prioritizing sustainability, which may be at the cost of outreach; their reason for being. Whence, the central question of this research: Is a balance between outreach and sustainability possible? The objective of this paper is to study, both theoretically and empirically, MFIs’ performances in terms of outreach and sustainability, as well as the trade-offs that may exist between them, with the aim of finding answers to this issue of balance between social and commercial missions, still unresolved. Thus, the ultimate contribution of this research is the “Global Performance Indicator”; a decision-making support tool that measures MFIs’ performances with regard to outreach and sustainability, as well as the interaction of these two variables, and consequently orients the decision-makers towards the actions to be taken in order to balance social and commercial objectives. To answer the research problem, we studied the case of two large nationwide microcredit associations in Morocco (AMCs) serving those excluded from the traditional banking system, and two small AMCs targeting mainly very low-income populations. This study supports the hypothesis concerning the positive links and complementarity between outreach and sustainability, while relying on governance as a strategic and decisive stake in the effectiveness of an institution. Keywords: microfinance, sustainability, outreach, global performance

Towards disruptions in Earth observation? New Earth Observation systems and markets evolution: Possible scenarios and impacts

This paper reviews the trends in Earth observation (EO) and the possible impacts on markets of the new initiatives, launched either by existing providers of EO data or by new players, privately funded. After a presentation of the existing models, the paper discusses the new approaches, addressing both commercial and institutional markets. New concepts for the very high resolution markets, in Europe and in the US, are the main focus of this analysis. Two complementary perspectives are summarised: on the one hand, the type of system and its operational performance and, on the other, the related business models, concepts of operation and ownership schemes.Until now, Earth observation systems for the most critical institutional needs are mainly dedicated assets owned and operated by governments or public organisations, often at national level. Even in the case of dual use missions, the governmental and commercial operations are in general fully segregated for the very high resolution satellites.Recent evolutions could affect this paradigm. Firstly, the increased performance of commercial satellites has a high degree of convergence with defence needs: 25–30cm resolution is now the benchmark or at least a very short term target for commercial missions. The second evolution is the development of hybrid procurement schemes, combining proprietary missions and data buy framework contracts, partly triggered by the budgetary constraints of public customers, some failures in the execution of large spy satellites contracts and by the willingness to foster the competitiveness of industry on the export market.New space is another trend, which is more disruptive. This trend begun in the Silicon Valley and spread worldwide, arousing our expectations, sometimes excessively. This new model involves not only start-ups but also big web actors with substantial investment capacity. Both aim to transforming space into a commodity, taking benefit from the convergence between Information technology and EO. Beside the massive constellations for broadband Internet access, some initiatives have been launched for Earth observation markets, targeting high resolution and high revisit. Last but not least, more and more countries, the newcomers, invest in their own EO capacity, confirming the soft power dimension of space but also opening new opportunities for international or regional cooperation.As many unpredictable events may occur, even in a short time frame, the last part of the paper has a prospective dimension. Based on market trends and industrial stakes, it discusses the realism and likelihood of possible scenarios and identifies their impacts on the EO landscape and the main stakeholders involved, in particular in Europe:–The governmental and institutional actors, using Earth observation data for their operational missions, with an evolving balance between sovereign assets and external services.–The commercial operators of very high resolution satellites, with the new market opportunities and the possible emergence of worldwide champions.–The satellite manufacturers and their competitiveness.–The role of nations and space agencies, including the non-dependence or national sovereignty and international cooperation dimensions.Based on the comparison of three “radical” scenarios, the conclusion shows that there are opportunities for service providers and satellite manufacturers. Even without clear answer to the future industrial, technical and political structure of EO systems, relevant indicators to be monitored during the next three-five years are identified. The last section focuses on Europe and the role of institutions in order to support European champions and small and medium companies in the new worldwide competition.

Direct and indirect capture of near-Earth asteroids in the Earth–Moon system

Near-Earth asteroids have attracted attention for both scientific and commercial mission applications. Due to the fact that the Earth–Moon $$\hbox {L}_{1}$$ and $$\hbox {L}_{2}$$ points are candidates for gateway stations for lunar exploration, and an ideal location for space science, capturing asteroids and inserting them into periodic orbits around these points is of significant interest for the future. In this paper, we define a new type of lunar asteroid capture, termed direct capture. In this capture strategy, the candidate asteroid leaves its heliocentric orbit after an initial impulse, with its dynamics modeled using the Sun–Earth–Moon restricted four-body problem until its insertion, with a second impulse, onto the $$\hbox {L}_{2}$$ stable manifold in the Earth–Moon circular restricted three-body problem. A Lambert arc in the Sun-asteroid two-body problem is used as an initial guess and a differential corrector used to generate the transfer trajectory from the asteroid’s initial obit to the stable manifold associated with Earth–Moon $$\hbox {L}_{2}$$ point. Results show that the direct asteroid capture strategy needs a shorter flight time compared to an indirect asteroid capture, which couples capture in the Sun–Earth circular restricted three-body problem and subsequent transfer to the Earth–Moon circular restricted three-body problem. Finally, the direct and indirect asteroid capture strategies are also applied to consider capture of asteroids at the triangular libration points in the Earth–Moon system.

Risky Business: The Seventeenth-Century English Company Chaplain, and Policing Interaction and Knowledge Exchange

In order to secure the success of their commercial and political missions, England’s seventeenth-century companies had to ensure that they maintained strict control over the social, religious, and commercial interactions of their personnel with local communities. The company chaplain became a leading figure in the companies, policing their personnel, imposing strict moral control or a form of religious governance, and ensuring that their own behavior did not damage the companies’ diplomatic or commercial mission. On top of policing the interactions of the companies’ personnel, chaplains, whether as intellectual pursuits or for evangelical and political purposes, engaged and interacted both with the communities to which they belonged and with those whom they had met abroad. Company experience offered chaplains unique opportunities as educated men, whether in the early stages of knowledge exchange, the policing of corporate interactions abroad, or the organization of how company experiences would be received back in England. This essay highlights the importance of the chaplain in shaping the interactions and exchanges of England’s seventeenth-century commercial world.

Essay Gifts: gifting for greater good

Subject area The subject areas are marketing, entrepreneurship, strategy or organisational design, operating in emerging markets and social entrepreneurship. Study level/applicability The study is applicable to MBA students, masters-level students and students of executive education. Case overview The case outlines the context and current decisions and dilemma facing Essay Gifts, which is a successful enterprise based in Cape Town, South Africa, supplying a local market in corporate gifting since 2006. The emerging market is facing economic decline and rising unemployment sitting at 25 per cent and up to 48 per cent in the youth market. After seven years of operating from a home-based office, Beatrice has moved into an office block in an upcoming area in Cape Town as they anticipate bullish targets for the upcoming year. The decision facing her now is whether to also sign a lease for a vacant retail shop downstairs from her office to sell ready-made gifting solutions. To meet the social mission, Essay Gifts is using township-based suppliers to develop the products, and this is proving an often unreliable and inconsistent source of supply and the current orders may not even be met at this particularly busy end-of-year period. How does Beatrice scale the business and what business is she in after all? Is she an entrepreneur, striving to increase the size of her business and her revenue, or is she a social entrepreneur creating employment opportunities for others? Expected learning outcomes The paper enables to identify the determining features of a social enterprise and the dynamics involved in balancing the social and commercial missions; understand the complexities of entrepreneurial operations in emerging markets; identify scaling up and strategic growth strategy options for social enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises; and distinguish entrepreneurial marketing strategies in contrast with traditional marketing strategies. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Micro Satellites: The Smaller the Satellites, the Bigger the Challenges?

Miniaturized satellites (hereinafter ‘microsats’) are becoming increasingly popular and more accessible to a wider range of industries operating in space. Their size and relative cost efficiency, together with the exponential rate at which technology continues to develop, has enabled their usage to expand from purely research-based missions to commercial missions operated by public and private entities alike. This article explores the factors in favour of the development of microsats and the technical challenges that have resulted from this development. The article summarizes the international regulation of the space industry, including liability for damage caused by space activities, and the ways in which regulation is implemented nationally. The article subsequently addresses the inadequacies of this framework in its regulation of the industry to date (such that registration of such space objects has in fact decreased) and discusses the further challenges the industry will face as it continues to expand, such as inappropriate registration procedures, overcrowding of radio frequencies and increased space debris, resulting in a greater risk of collisions, which has the potential to expose States to vast claims for compensation. It is clear that a more appropriate regulatory regime must be developed to address the development of the microsat industry.

CADDY—Cognitive Autonomous Diving Buddy: Two Years of Underwater Human-Robot Interaction

AbstractDivers operate in harsh and poorly monitored environments, in which the slightest unexpected disturbance, technical malfunction, or lack of attention can have catastrophic consequences. Motivated by these considerations, the “CADDY—Cognitive Autonomous Diving Buddy” FP7 project sets forth the main goal of developing a cooperative autonomous underwater robotic system to monitor and assist human divers, thus affording them increased levels of safety during the execution of challenging scientific and commercial missions. This article presents the main results obtained in the first 2 years of the project along the following main research topics: Seeing the Diver, where the focus is placed on the 3D reconstruction of a diver's model (pose estimation and recognition of hand gestures) through remote and local sensing technologies, thus enabling behavior interpretation; Understanding the Diver, with the objective of interpreting the model and physiological measurements of the diver in order to determine the state of the diver; and Diver-Robot Cooperation and Control, aimed at investigating the interaction of the diver with underwater vehicles endowed with rich sensory motor skills, focusing on cooperative control and optimal formation with the diver as an integral part of the overall vehicle-diver formation.

Monte Carlo Uncertainty Quantification Using Quasi-1D SRM Ballistic Model

Compactness, reliability, readiness, and construction simplicity of solid rocket motors make them very appealing for commercial launcher missions and embarked systems. Solid propulsion grants high thrust-to-weight ratio, high volumetric specific impulse, and a Technology Readiness Level of 9. However, solid rocket systems are missing any throttling capability at run-time, since pressure-time evolution is defined at the design phase. This lack of mission flexibility makes their missions sensitive to deviations of performance from nominal behavior. For this reason, the reliability of predictions and reproducibility of performances represent a primary goal in this field. This paper presents an analysis of SRM performance uncertainties throughout the implementation of a quasi-1D numerical model of motor internal ballistics based on Shapiro’s equations. The code is coupled with a Monte Carlo algorithm to evaluate statistics and propagation of some peculiar uncertainties from design data to rocker performance parameters. The model has been set for the reproduction of a small-scale rocket motor, discussing a set of parametric investigations on uncertainty propagation across the ballistic model.