Commercial Missions Research Articles

Developing Dijik-Primbert Algorithm for Finding Unpredictable Paths over Time-Varying Networks

Cooperation among multiple unmanned vehicles is an intensely challenging topic from a theoretical and practical standpoint, with far reaching indications in scientific and commercial mission scenarios. The difficulty of time coordination for a rapid of multirotor UAVs includes predefined spatial paths according to mission necessities. With the solution proposed, cooperative control is accomplished in the presence of time-varying communication networks, as well as stringent temporal constraints, such as concurrent arrival at the desired final locations. The proposed explanation solves the time-coordination problem under the acceptance that the trajectory-genera- tion and the path-following algorithms meeting convinced cohesion conditions are given. Communication is processed in unpredictable paths by the use of path following and directed communication graph. Dijik-Primbert algorithm for finding the shortest collision free paths is used to avoid and detect collision/congestion in unpredictable paths. Without collision detection, it doesn’t seem agreeable to have collision avoidance because there wouldn’t be everything to avoid. Dijikloyd algorithm is used for finding shortest paths in a weighted directed graph with positive and negative edges. Primloyd algorithm is used for finding shortest paths in a weighted undirected graph for conquering the complexity in matrix coding. In case of conges- tion or collision then the whole network is learned about it to all the communica- tors. Hence, communication is taken place in an unpredictable path in a secured manner.

Restructuring China's research institutes

AbstractOver the past two decades, China's R&D intensity has surged. The institutional arrangements underlying this surge remain unclear. We study the notable restructuring of the country's 5,000 research institutes, begun in 1999. This study first reviews the evolution of China's research institute sector over the period 1995–2010. Then applying OLS, fixed effects, event study and propensity score analysis to institute level data, we find the restructuring programme has accomplished some of its goals. The converted Science and Technology enterprises shifted towards a more commercial mission, the institutes converted to non‐profit research institutes have focused on a more research‐oriented mission.

SPIS 5.1: An Innovative Approach for Spacecraft Plasma Modeling

Version 5.1 of Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software (SPIS) has been recently released and is freely available for download to the whole community. It is the outcome of European Space Agency studies, SPIS-Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and SPIS-SCI, and several contributions from the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Network in Europe community members. It also relies on a Centre national d’etudes spatiales-sponsored activity to identify user needs of the industry for charging analysis. SPIS is now used in a much wider scope of applications than initially expected, from mission definition to in-flight scientific measurements analysis. The first version of a new modernized generation SPIS 5.1 aims to address these new issues and challenges in spacecraft surface interaction modeling, including spacecraft charging of commercial missions in Medium Earth Orbit/GEO. For this, SPIS 5.1 offers a simplified user interface and introduces new state-of-the-art software technologies.

The Clash of Missions: Juxtaposing Competing Pressures in South Africa's Social Enterprises

Social enterprises seek resource combinations to provide some assurance of sustainability as they create social value in a defined domain of action. However, this resource-seeking mandate also constitutes a distraction that complicates the operations of any social enterprise. How do social enterprises manage the implicit duality of maintaining a commercial mission in order to achieve their social mission? Using the context of South Africa, this study examines the process trade-offs that enhance or limit social impact under the referenced duality. The study clarifies the nature of these trade-offs, as a basis for appropriating efficiency-enhancing process design in enterprises that create, but do not capture value. The author proposes a unique intersection between the logic of control and the logic of empowerment in the field of social entrepreneurship, and suggests that value chain processes be controlled to the extent that the enterprise acts as a custodian of community empowerment for its target beneficiaries.

연료전지 무인항공기의 고도와 체공시간에 대한 특성 분석 및 최신 연구동향

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been applied to not only military missions like surveillance and reconnaissance but also commercial missions like meteorological observation, aerial photograph, communication relay, internet network build and disaster observation. Fuel cells make UAVs eco-friendly by using hydrogen. Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) show low operation temperature, high efficiency, low noise and high energy density and those characterisitcs are well fitted with UAVs. Thus Fuel cell based UAVs have been actively developed in the world. Recently, fuel cell UAVs have started to develope for high altitude UAVs because target altitude of UAVs is expanded upto stratosphere altitude. Long endurance of UAVs is essential to improve effects of the missions. Improvement of UAV endurance time could be fulfilled by developing a hydrogen fuel storage system with high energy density and reducing the weight of UAVs. In this paper, research trend and analysis of fuel cell UAVs are introduced in terms of their altitude and endurance time and then the prospect of fuel cell UAVs are shown.

Os estudos comparativos e os desenhos 'imparciais e singelos' de Antonio Lopes Mendes no Brasil (1882-1883)

O artigo analisa a singularidade de Antonio Lopes Mendes (1835-1894), agrônomo português que viajou por seu país e pelo mundo (especialmente Índia e Brasil) integrando missões científicas e comerciais. Essa experiência resultou em abundante material textual e iconográfico, ainda pouco estudado. Como outros 'homens de ciência' e politécnicos de seu tempo, Lopes Mendes demonstrou notória sensibilidade para a expressão visual, realizando estudos comparativos com a 'imparcialidade' e a 'singeleza' de seu traço. Desenhista atento, meticuloso e prolixo, ele esteve no Brasil entre 1882 e 1883, quando percorreu várias províncias do país e, mais detidamente, a região Norte. As descrições textuais e visuais que compõem suas observações de campo nos ajudam a compreender a interdisciplinaridade do conhecimento científico, assim como sua constituição e comunicação pelas artes visuais no século XIX.

Restructuring China's Research Institutes: Impacts on China's Research Orientation and Productivity

This paper evaluates the impact of the Chinese government’s initiative begun in 1999 to restructure the country’s approximately 3,500 research institutes. The paper reviews the evolution of China’s research sector over the period 1995 to 2010, identifying certain issues that are analyzed using a panel of sample research institutes. The econometric analysis is based on a balanced sample of these institutes, both converted and unconverted, spanning 1998, the year prior to the restructuring initiative, to 2005. In order to control for potential endogeneity and selection bias, the paper employs various econometric methods to evaluate the impact of the restructuring program on the performance of these institutes. We find that the restructuring program appears to have achieved its fundamental goals, that is, shifting the relevant resources toward a more commercial mission for the converted S&T enterprises and a more research-oriented mission, involving the use of government grants, for the non-profit research institutes. The results show modest gains in the efficiency of patent production, but given the lengthy gestation period, a longer duration is needed to assess how the patent production of China’s research institutes will adapt to the shift in their missions and reassignment of government resources.

Technology transfer offices as boundary spanners in the pre-spin-off process: the case of a hybrid model

Over the past decades, universities have increasingly become ambidextrous organizations reconciling scientific and commercial missions. In order to manage this ambidexterity, technology transfer offices (TTOs) were established in most universities. This paper studies a specific, often implemented, but rather understudied type of TTO, namely a hybrid TTO model uniting centralized and decentralized levels. Employing a qualitative research design, we examine how and why the two TTO levels engage in diverse boundary spanning activities to help nascent spin-off companies move through the pre-spin-off process. Our research identifies differences in the types of boundary spanning activities that centralized and decentralized TTOs perform and in the parties they engage with. We find geographical, technological and organizational proximity to be important antecedents of the TTOs’ engagement in external and internal boundary spanning activities. These results have important implications for both academics and practitioners interested in university technology transfer through spin-off creation.

Changing attitudes towards economic development and democracy in Brazil: Roberto Simonsen, Ernest Hambloch and the Brazilian Commercial Mission to the UK in 1919

The visit of the Brazilian Commercial Mission to the UK in 1919 helped produce a change in mentalities following the First World War. The attitudes of British officials and business representatives reveal their priorities in attempting to re-establish Britain's trading and financial position in Brazil amidst the emerging commercial rivalry of the USA. The visit influenced the thinking of the entrepreneur, Roberto Simonsen, who became Brazil's leading proponent of state-led industrialisation. The British diplomat, Ernest Hambloch, later wrote His Majesty the President, a critical account of the workings of republican Brazil's political system. The different views of these two participants illustrate the tension between development and democracy in twentieth century Brazilian history.

Multiband transmissions for underwater acoustic communication

Underwater acoustic communication is important to a variety of scientific and commercial missions in the ocean, for example ocean exploration and monitoring. Due to hardware limitations, often limited bandwidth, for example, 6–7 kHz, has been used in underwater communication systems. In addition to high spectral efficiency, large bandwidth can also lead to increased data rates. When utilizing a large frequency band, frequency-division multiplexing, which refers to dividing an available frequency band into smaller sub-bands, is the common practice. We propose to use multiband transmissions for the underwater acoustic channel, where the wide frequency band is divided into multiple separated sub-bands. The sub-band is much wider than the sub-carrier in the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). The former is several kilohertz in width while the latter is often only tens of hertz. During our experiment in Hawaii in 2011, high data rates were achieved through the use of multiband transmissions, combined with time reversal demodulation. In the meeting, we will present the receiver algorithms for single- and multi-source acoustic communication systems in the multiband transmission framework. Comparison between the multiband transmissions and OFDM schemes will be also discussed. [Work supported by ONR Code 322OA.]

Commercial On-Orbit Satellite Servicing: National and International Policy Considerations Raised by Industry Proposals

Commercial on-orbit satellite servicing for the first time presents itself as a concrete and pressing policy issue in several countries. Several commercial entities are developing or contemplating capabilities that could enable cost-efficient in-space servicing and refueling in ways previously thought unfeasible. For example, in 2011, two commercial firms planned to develop a commercial servicing vehicle and perform the first commercial mission. Other commercial players have also announced servicing programs. A commercial servicing industry will evolve with its policy, legal, and regulatory environment. The policy choices of national governments, acting either individually or in concert, will determine whether a commercial servicing industry emerges and how it develops. We begin this article by describing commercial servicing and examining recent and proposed efforts at developing commercial servicing capabilities from technical and business perspectives. We then discuss the national and international policy choices that shape the prospects of an emerging commercial servicing industry.

Regional Integration and the Private Authority of Banks in West Africa1

A lacuna in the networked global economy and private regulatory authority literatures—hence the main theoretical contribution of this article—involves situations where regulatory authority is ceded or outsourced to nonstate business actors that, in addition to their commercial mission, espouse and actually integrate their profit motive with political and economic missions that can enhance or undermine regional integration effectiveness. Such identity-based, dual-mission regional business actors are more likely to promote regional economic integration than their foreign counterparts because these firms often define the region as the centerpiece of their investment decisions. The melding of their “region-centricity” with the profit motive may suggest the capacity of states and nonstate actors to “tame” or “regionalize” globalization or even challenge the existing global order. The empirical evidence is drawn from an unlikely source, that is, cross-border, dual-mission regional banks in West Africa to whom governments and INGOs have ceded or “outsourced” critical central banking regulatory authority, empowering or enabling them to (i) act as regional development banks through public–private partnerships; (ii) create and regulate financial instruments as surrogate common currency and regional payments systems; and (iii) cross-border supervision of regional bank subsidiaries and branches. Expanded private authority of regional banks is creating putative region-wide norms of financial integration and behavioral changes among banks and other sectors and governments while amplifying the limits of private-sector-led financial integration. The study fills a gap in the comparative regionalism literature that continues to neglect, misidentify, or undervalue the African experience.

Ariane 5 ECA's upper stage perigee reduction via passivation manoeuvre

When Ariane 5 ECA development has been decided by Europe to increase Ariane 5 performance, the rule of 25 years in GTO orbit for the upper stage has been anticipated. This was 14 years ago and this rule was known to be satisfied with a perigee lower than 250km. Even when lowering slightly Ariane 5 ECA performance, this maximum perigee altitude has been held and the whole Launch System has been developed under CNES responsibility with this GTO perigee. In the meantime, more precise calculations demonstrated that such a GTO perigee was giving for the ESCA a mean lifetime higher than 25 years. So studies are in progress inside CNES to decrease the perigee and re-enter inside the 25 years lifetime domain. This paper presents a CNES study to reduce the orbital lifetime of Ariane 5's upper stage that last in GTO after each commercial mission. Usually the aimed orbit has a perigee altitude of 250km, an apogee altitude near to the geostationary position and an inclination between 2° and 7°. These conditions make stage's mean lifetime superior to 90 years. The CNES study is to expose the possibility to decrease this lifetime by reducing the perigee altitude of the final upper stage orbit through a passivation process optimised to produce orbit modification. It is shown that taking into account material and functional stage constraints the optimised passivation process is able to decrease the perigee by a few tenths of kilometres.

6U CubeSat commercial applications

AbstractRecent work by Tsitas and Kingston(1) has demonstrated that an 8kg 6U CubeSat can be designed to perform Earth observation missions equivalent to those of 50-150kg microsatellites. Their design is reviewed and its commercial potential is compared to the 156kg RapidEye spacecraft. Three other commercial applications of this design are described. These are: a standard spacecraft for space scientists and astronomers; the spacecraft component of an N nation 5 spectral band disaster monitoring constellation and a night imaging satellite. Nanosatellites should now be considered for commercial missions previously thought to require microsatellites.

Sustainable Development of Maritime Operations in Ports

ABSTRACTGlobalisation has heralded burgeoning ship movements and maritime operations in ports alongside increased international concerns regarding potential environmental impacts. In particular, smaller ports require accessible tools to manage them. A framework to facilitate environmental management applies business process principles to identify relevant inputs, processes and outputs. A case study of Falmouth Harbour Commissioners compares functional units and flows that define input–output processes for anchoring and bunkering operations. Strategic‐level processes affect present and future operations while tactical service processes guarantee service level and quality through their integrity. Operational processes occur at the output level. An accessible generic framework supports planning of more sustainable maritime operations, facilitates mitigation of potential risks and encourages authorities to engage with sustainability agendas and manage development proposals proactively. Ongoing interlocution with business strategists will refocus port managers on educational and commercial missions and increase stakeholder engagement. Simplification and optimisation phases of business process re‐engineering remain untapped by business strategists. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Optimal Sensor Placement for Multiple Underwater Target Localization with Acoustic Range Measurements

AbstractWorldwide, there is increasing interest in the operation of multiple autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to carry out scientific and commercial missions at sea. For some of the envisioned missions, it is crucial that new methods be developed to localize one more of the vehicles simultaneously, based on acoustic range information received on-board a set of autonomous surface vehicles. As a contribution towards meeting this goal, this paper addresses the problem of computing the optimal geometric configuration of a mobile surface sensor network that will maximize the range-related information available for multiple target localization in three-dimensional space. In contrast to what has so far been published in the literature, we address explicitly the localization problem in 3D using a sensor array located at the sea surface (2D). Furthermore, we incorporate directly in the problem formulation the fact that multiple targets must be localized simultaneously. Clearly, there will be tradeoffs involved in the precision with which each of the targets can be localized; to study them, we resort to techniques that borrow from Pareto optimization and estimation theory. Simulation examples illustrate the key results derived.

AMALIA Mission Lunar Rover—The conceptual design of the Team ITALIA Rover, candidate for the Google Lunar X Prize Challenge

The paper provides an overview of the conceptual design of the Lunar Rover conceived by Team Italia for the AMALIA Mission, candidate for the Google Lunar X Prize Challenge. The name of the mission is an acronym of the Latin language sentence “Ascensio Machinae Ad Lunam Italica Arte”. With the Lunar Challenge initiative, the X Prize Foundation intends to promote the involvement of private actors in the access to space, by endowing a prize to the first privately funded lunar mission covering a certain minimum distance on the Moon surface. Additional prizes are available in case of achievement of more challenging goals, like surviving lunar night, travelling for a longer distance, visiting areas of the first Apollo Missions. Although the AMALIA Rover Subsystems are the typical ones of an Exploration Rover, their design is highly influenced by the above depicted mission context. The followed design approach is closer to the one of a commercial mission than to an Institutional Space Exploration Mission one. It has to be noted that, for being compliant with GLXP rules, at least 90% of funds required for competing in the Prize has to come from private or non-governmental sources. The achievement of such challenging goals requires adopting suitable technical and programmatic solutions, having the need to optimize costs and schedule while still maximizing the probability of success.

Ground assisted rendezvous with geosynchronous satellites for the disposal of space debris by means of Earth-oriented tethers

Previous studies have shown that extended length Earth-oriented tethers in the geosynchronous (GEO) region can be used to re-orbit satellites to disposal orbits. One such approach involves the extension of a GEO based tether, collection of a debris object, and retraction of the tether, which transfers the retracted configuration to a higher energy orbit for debris disposal. The re-extension of the tether after debris disposal returns the configuration to the near-GEO altitude. The practical feasibility of such a system depends on the ability to collect GEO debris objects, attach them to a deployed tether system, and retract the tethers for transfer to the disposal orbits. This study addresses the collection and delivery of debris objects to the deployed tether system in GEO. The investigation considers the number, type and the characteristics of the debris objects as well as the collection tug that can be ground controlled to detect, rendezvous and dock with the debris objects for their delivery to the tethers system. A total of more than 400 objects are in drift orbits crossing all longitudes either below or above the geostationary radius. More than 130 objects are also known to librate around the stable points in GEO with periods of libration up to five or more years. A characterization of the position and velocity of the debris objects relative to the collection tug is investigated. Typical rendezvous performance requirements for uncooperative GEO satellites are examined, and the similarities with other approaches such as the ESA's CX-OLEV commercial mission proposal to extend the life of geostationary telecommunication satellites are noted.

The Canberra high altitude mission platform

This presents the capabilities of two English Electric Aviation Canberra aircraft owned by High Altitude Mapping Missions, Inc. These aircraft are available for high altitude commercial, government, and scientific missions. The basic specifications of the Canberra are provided and compared to other high-performance jet aircraft falling into the same category. This describes the high altitude flight characteristics and mission capabilities of the Canberras. The aircraft are configured to conduct up to eight-hour flight operations with up to six hours at 50,000 feet altitude. Shorter missions can be conducted at higher altitudes. Potential missions include: IFSAR, magnetic field mapping, gravity field mapping, imaging (SAR, IR, & hyper-spectral), LIDAR, communications relay, dropsonde deployment, hybrid rocket launching, severe storm monitoring, and disaster monitoring. Canberra high altitude operations have minimal weather impact on missions, are free from flight constraints imposed by air traffic control, can do large area coverage, and long mission times.

Commercial Space Tourism and Space Weather

Commercial Space Tourism and Space Weather