End Of Mission Research Articles

Unpacking the learning dynamics of a military task force in Afghanistan from a project-based organising perspective

ABSTRACT From a theoretical perspective of project-based organising, this study analyses how a deployed military task force heuristically learns. Empirically, learning within Task Force Uruzgan (TFU) in southern Afghanistan, is scrutinised. This contribution of the Netherlands armed forces to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) lasted for four years and saw successive rotations of task forces simultaneously fighting an insurgency and trying to stabilise a part of Afghanistan through reconstruction and development projects. Above all, the study has found that task ambiguity can make it challenging for a task force deployed to deal with varying contingencies at the same time. Two effects are noteworthy. First, learning can become compartmentalised, with different organisational elements following their own learning trajectories. Second, learning can also become short-term focused, responding to the most imminent and familiar threat. Combined, both learning impulses affect organisational coherence in meeting the overarching mission end state.

Fundamentalism in Central Asian Republic

This research paper examines the complex dynamics of radicalization and extremism in the Central Asian republics. Fundamentalism calls for a return to fundamental principles that are considered original and pure. It is characterized by a rigorous devotion to certain texts, dogmas, or ideologies. Against the backdrop of porous borders and socio-economic instability, Central Asia, strategically located at a crossroads between different economic areas linking the West and the East, must deal with the urgent threat of extremism. The terrorist attack in Kunduz, the end of the ISAF mission, and Pakistan's Zarb-e-Azb operation near the Afghan border are just some of the recent events that highlight how serious this problem has become in the region. Although there are not many large, well-known terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, there are many regional extremist movements that are difficult to identify and understand. To clarify what elements, influence the rise of fundamentalism in Central Asia, this secondary research summarises the existing knowledge. By looking at the socio-economic vulnerabilities and geopolitical background, the work aims to offer insights that will lead to more effective preventive measures. The study aims to contribute to a thorough understanding of regional dynamics as extremism continues to spread in Central Asia. This will enable international cooperation and informed policy decisions to counter the growing threat of fundamentalism in the heart of Asia.

T.F. Torrance’s Theology of Mission and Analytic Theology’s Contribution to Missiology

Abstract This article demonstrates analytic theology’s contribution to missiology by turning to T.F. Torrance’s theology of mission as a test case. Upon examining Torrance’s missiological contribution, it becomes apparent that his notion of the end of mission—the personalization of humanity—is conceptually fuzzy. I demonstrate how analytic theology can clarify, and further develop, this aspect of Torrance’s missiology, and thus conclude that if analytic theology can help to bring clarity to the missiological proposals of one missional theologian, then perhaps analytic theology might lay claim to the possibility of playing a greater role within the discipline of missiology.

Promoting the Maneuverability and Fault-Tolerant Control Capabilities of Dual-System/Hybrid VTOL UAVs

This paper presents an active fault-tolerant flight control system (FCS) design for the dual-system/hybrid VTOL UAV configuration that maximally exploits its inherent over-actuation abilities to provide higher levels of fault-tolerance and reliability compared to that of the other VTOL UAVs configurations up to this point. The significance of this study is to convert the main drawback of having the vertical rotors as dead weights during the cruise to a key advantage where all the UAV's controls are kept active during all the flight phases raising the UAV's fault-tolerance and maneuverability abilities. The FCS proposed elaborates on a new architecture for the hierarchical automatic control loops using the dynamic inversion control to design the trajectory tracking virtual commands and employing optimal dynamic control allocation to optimally resolve the controls redundancy. Regarding fault-tolerance, the presented FCS handles simultaneous failures and jamming of all the control surfaces during flight where the control commands to the healthy controls (vertical rotors) were automatically adapted such that the trimming and trajectory tracking were successfully maintained till the mission end. Additionally, this paper addresses for the first time the employment of the controls redundancy to enhance the VTOL UAV's maneuverability in fault-free cases, where we present a study of reducing the minimum turn radius of the UAV when the vertical rotors are employed with the control surfaces during the maneuver. A reduction of 38% in the coordinated steady-level minimum turn radius turn at 35 m/sec flight speed was achieved.

Image‐Based Classification of Intense Radio Bursts From Spectrograms: An Application to Saturn Kilometric Radiation

AbstractSaturn Kilometric Radiation (SKR) is a non‐thermal auroral emission with peak emission occurring at 100–400 kHz. Its properties have been extensively studied since Cassini's arrival at Saturn until mission end with its Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) experiment. Low Frequency Extensions (LFEs) of SKR which consist of global intensifications of SKR accompanied by extensions of the main SKR band down to lower frequencies have been studied in particular. Low Frequency Extensions result from internally driven tail reconnection and from solar wind compressions of the magnetosphere, which also trigger tail reconnection. They have been cataloged through visual inspection with two approaches, using an intensity threshold for LFEs in 2006 (Reed et al., 2018, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017ja024499) and more recently O’Dwyer et al. (2023a, https://doi.org/10.25546/103103) produced a sample of LFEs detected by Cassini/RPWS by fitting their exact frequency‐time coordinates with polygons. In this study we use the latter catalog of LFEs as a training set for an image based machine learning algorithm to classify all LFEs detected by Cassini/RPWS. The inputs to the model are multi‐channel images consisting of spectrogram images in flux density and degree of circular polarization. The outputs of the model are binary masks showing the exact location of the LFE in frequency‐time space. The median Intersection Over Union across the testing and training set were calculated to be 0.97 and 0.98, respectively. The output of this study is a list of all 4,874 LFEs detected using this method. The list of LFE frequency‐time coordinates is available for use amongst the scientific community.

The forgotten cohort-lessons learned from prehospital trauma death: a retrospective cohort study

BackgroundTrauma related deaths remain a relevant public health problem, in particular in the younger male population. A significant number of these deaths occur prehospitally without transfer to a hospital. These patients, sometimes termed “the forgotten cohort”, are usually not included in clinical registries, resulting in a lack of information about prehospitally trauma deaths. The aim of the present study was to compare patients who died prehospital with those who sustained life-threatening injuries in order to analyze and potentially improve prehospital strategies.MethodsThis cohort study included all primary operations carried out by Switzerland's largest helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2021. We included all adult trauma patients with life-threatening or fatal conditions. The outcome of this study is the vital status of the patient at the end of mission, i.e. fatal or life-threatening. Injury, rescue characteristics, and interventions of the forgotten trauma cohort, defined as patients with a fatal injury (NACA score of VII), were compared with life-threatening injuries (NACA score V and VI).ResultsOf 110,331 HEMS missions, 5534 primary operations were finally analyzed, including 5191 (93.8%) life-threatening and 343 (6.2%) fatal injuries. More than two-thirds of patients (n = 3772, 68.2%) had a traumatic brain injury without a significant difference between the two groups (p > 0.05). Thoracic trauma (44.6% vs. 28.7%, p < 0.001) and abdominal trauma (22.2% vs. 16.1%, p = 0.004) were more frequent in fatal missions whereas pelvic trauma was similar between the two groups (13.4% vs. 12.9%, p = 0.788). Pneumothorax decompression rate (17.2% vs. 3.7%, p < 0.001) was higher in the forgotten cohort group and measures for bleeding control (15.2% vs. 42.7%, p < 0.001) and pelvic belt application (2.9% vs. 13.1% p < 0.001) were more common in the life-threating injury group.ConclusionChest decompression rates and measures for early hemorrhage control are areas for potential improvement in prehospital care.

Reprocessed precise science orbits and gravity field recovery for the entire GOCE mission

ESA’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) orbited the Earth between 2009 and 2013 for the determination of the static part of Earth’s gravity field. The GPS-derived precise science orbits (PSOs) were operationally generated by the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern (AIUB). Due to a significantly improved understanding of remaining artifacts after the end of the GOCE mission (especially in the GOCE gradiometry data), ESA initiated a reprocessing of the entire GOCE Level 1b data in 2018. In this framework, AIUB was commissioned to recompute the GOCE reduced-dynamic and kinematic PSOs. In this paper, we report on the employed precise orbit determination methods, with a focus on measures undertaken to mitigate ionosphere-induced artifacts in the kinematic orbits and thereof derived gravity field models. With respect to the PSOs computed during the operational phase of GOCE, the reprocessed PSOs show in average a 8–9% better consistency with GPS data, 31% smaller 3-dimensional reduced-dynamic orbit overlaps, an 8% better 3-dimensional consistency between reduced-dynamic and kinematic orbits, and a 3–7% reduction of satellite laser ranging residuals. In the second part of the paper, we present results from GPS-based gravity field determinations that highlight the strong benefit of the GOCE reprocessed kinematic PSOs. Due to the applied data weighting strategy, a substantially improved quality of gravity field coefficients between degree 10 and 40 is achieved, corresponding to a remarkable reduction of ionosphere-induced artifacts along the geomagnetic equator. For a static gravity field solution covering the entire mission period, geoid height differences with respect to a superior inter-satellite ranging solution are markedly reduced (43% in terms of global RMS, compared to previous GOCE GPS-based gravity fields). Furthermore, we demonstrate that the reprocessed GOCE PSOs allow to recover long-wavelength time-variable gravity field signals (up to degree 10), comparable to information derived from GPS data of dedicated satellite missions. To this end, it is essential to take into account the GOCE common-mode accelerometer data in the gravity field recovery.

Blood Metabolite Profiling of Antarctic Expedition Members: An 1H NMR Spectroscopy-Based Study.

Serum samples from eight participants during the XV winter-over at Concordia base (Antarctic expedition) collected at defined time points, including predeparture, constituted the key substrates for a specific metabolomics study. To ascertain acute changes and chronic adaptation to hypoxia, the metabolic profiles of the serum samples were analyzed using NMR spectroscopy, with principal components analysis (PCA) followed by partial least squares and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analyses (PLS-DA and OPLS-DA) used as supervised classification methods. Multivariate data analyses clearly highlighted an adaptation period characterized by an increase in the levels of circulating glutamine and lipids, mobilized to supply the body energy needs. At the same time, a reduction in the circulating levels of glutamate and N-acetyl glycoproteins, stress condition indicators, and proinflammatory markers were also found in the NMR data investigation. Subsequent pathway analysis showed possible perturbations in metabolic processes, potentially related to the physiological adaptation, predominantly found by comparing the baseline (at sea level, before mission onset), the base arrival, and the mission ending collected values.

Att delta utan att närvara

Compulsory schooling in Sweden was introduced in 1842. However, its meaning has changed over time, both in terms of who it applies to, how long it applies and how it can or should be implemented. During the 2000s, compulsory schooling has become synonymous with the obligation to be present in school and attend class. There are students who for medical, mental and social reasons can not go to school and fulfill their school obligation. In order to ensure that these students receive the education they are entitled to, a new chapter was introduced in 2020 in the Swedish Education Act, enabling distance learning. The purpose of the article is to learn more about how the educational policy framework of school attendance and everyone’s right to education can affect the meaning of compulsory schooling, and how this discursive change can have consequences for students, schools, and society. To achieve this, government policy texts on distance education and school attendance published in 2017-2021 are analyzed. The consequences that are perceived to follow from teaching beyond the school area are also discussed here. One consequence that is highlighted is that the school’s democracy mission ends up in danger. The analysis is inspired by Carol Lee Bacchi’s approach WPR (What’s the Problem Represented to be).

Towards an Innovative Sensor in Smart Capsule for Aerial Drones for Blood and Blood Component Delivery.

Aerial drone technology is currently being investigated worldwide for the delivery of blood components. Although it has been demonstrated to be safe, the delivered medical substances still need to be analyzed at the end of the flight mission to assess the level of haemolysis and pH prior to the use in a patient. This process can last up to 30 min and prevent the time saved using drone delivery. Our study aims to integrating an innovative sensor for the haemolysis and pH detection into the Smart Capsule, an already demonstrated technology capable of managing transfusion transport through drones. In the proposed scenario, the haemolysis is evaluated optically by a minilysis device using LED–photodetector combination. The preliminary validation has been demonstrated for both the thermal stability of the Smart Capsule and the haemolysis detection of the minilysis device prototype. Firstly, the onboard temperature test has shown that the delivery system is capable of maintaining proper temperature, even though the samples have been manipulated to reach a higher temperature before inserting into the Smart Capsule. Then, in the laboratory haemolysis test, the trend of linear regression between the outputs from the spectrophotometer and the minilysis prototype confirmed the concept design of the minilysis device.

Providing On-Site Laboratory and Biosafety Just-In-Time Training Inside a Box-Based Laboratory during the West Africa Ebola Outbreak: Supporting Better Preparedness for Future Health Emergencies.

The Biological Light Fieldable Laboratory for Emergencies (B-LiFE) is a box-based modular laboratory with the capacity to quickly deploy on-site in cases of uncontrolled spread of infectious disease. During the 2014–2015 West Africa Ebola outbreak, this tent laboratory provided diagnostic support to the N’Zerekore Ebola Treatment Center (ETC), Guinea, for three months. One of the objectives of B-LiFE deployment was to contribute, as much as possible, to national capacity building by training local scientists. Two Guinean biologists were selected according to their basic biological knowledge and laboratory skills among 50 candidate trainees, and were integrated into the team through “just-in-time training” (JiTT), which helped the biologists acquire knowledge and laboratory skills beyond their expertise. The JiTT program was conducted according to standard laboratory procedures, in line with international biosafety guidelines adapted to field conditions. Supervised acquisition of field-laboratory practices mainly focused on biochemical testing and Ebola viral load quantification using routine PCR-based detection, including the Biofire FilmArray® system (BFA), a novel, as yet non-validated, automated assay for diagnostic testing of Ebola virus disease at the time of B-LiFE deployment. During the JiTT, the two biologists were closely involved in all laboratory activities, including BFA validation and biosafety procedures. Meanwhile, this successful JiTT enhanced the B-LiFE in-field operational capacity and contributed to national capacity building. A post-training evaluation and contacts were organised to assess the evolution and technical skills gained by the two researchers during the B-LiFE mission. At the end of the B-LiFE mission, both biologists were enrolled in follow-on programmes to curb the epidemic spreading in Africa. These results demonstrate that during infectious disease outbreaks or major crises, the JiTT approach can rapidly expand access to critical diagnostic testing and train local staff to do so.

Effects Of Acute And Sustained Stress On Cognitive Performance During A 72-hour Military Training Mission

Stress can have varying impacts on cognitive function. Research shows that chronic, or sustained stress, may lead to declines in cognition, whereas acute stress may improve or impair performance depending on the cognitive domain assessed. However, research rarely examines the impacts of both acute and chronic stress on cognition within the same individual, or overlooks specialized cohorts (i.e. military personnel). Yet, Soldiers often experience varying forms and combinations of acute and sustained stressors during sustained operations (SUSOPS), i.e. encountering a firefight at the end of a multi-day mission. Thus, it is important to understand how varying aspects of cognitive function may change in response to acute and chronic stress experienced in operational environments. PURPOSE: To compare effects of acute and sustained stressors on cognitive performance over the course of a 72-hr military training exercise. METHODS: 62 active duty Soldiers (Age: 22.9 ± 3.2 yrs; 62 males), completed a series of cognitive tasks at Baseline (several weeks prior) and at three time points (T1, T2, T3) during a highly stressful 72-hr training mission. Soldiers performed Go/No-Go (GNG), N-back (NB), Task-Switching (TS), and Simple Reaction Time (SRT) tasks at T1, which occurred pre-mission following a live-fire exercise (acute stress); at T2, after approximately 36-hrs of mission activities (sustained stress); and at T3, after a second live-fire exercise at the end of the 72-hr mission (acute and sustained stress). RESULTS: Repeated Measures ANOVA’s showed main effects of Time for GNG and SRT tasks (p's < .05) Compared to Baseline, planned comparisons revealed that inhibition (GNG) declined following sustained stress, with false alarms increasing at T2 (p < .05); whereas reaction time (SRT) degraded following acute stress, with slower RTs at T1 (p < .01). GNG and SRT performance both declined due to the combined acute and sustained stress at T3 (p's < .01). Performance on TS and NB tasks remained unaffected. CONCLUSIONS: Acute and sustained stress experienced during SUSOPS differentially impacts cognition depending on the type of stress and cognitive domain assessed. These data show that effects of stress are nuanced and emphasize the importance of characterizing changes in cognition over multi-day missions. Funding: Army RDT&E

MCO Plan: Efficient Coverage Mission for Multiple Micro Aerial Vehicles Modeled as Agents

Micro aerial vehicle (MAV) fleets have gained essential recognition in the decision schemes for precision agriculture, disaster management, and other coverage missions. However, they have some challenges in becoming massively deployed. One of them is resource management in restricted workspaces. This paper proposes a plan to balance resources when considering the practical use of MAVs and workspace in daily chores. The coverage mission plan is based on five stages: world abstraction, area partitioning, role allocation, task generation, and task allocation. The tasks are allocated according to agent roles, Master, Coordinator, or Operator (MCO), which describe their flight autonomy, connectivity, and decision skill. These roles are engaged with the partitioning based on the Voronoi-tessellation but extended to heterogeneous polygons. The advantages of the MCO Plan were evident compared with conventional Boustrophedon decomposition and clustering by K-means. The MCO plan achieved a balanced magnitude and trend of heterogeneity between both methods, involving MAVs with few or intermediate resources. The resulting efficiency was tested in the GAMA platform, with gained energy between 2% and 10% in the mission end. In addition, the MCO plan improved mission times while the connectivity was effectively held, even more, if the Firefly algorithm generated coverage paths.

VENμS: Mission Characteristics, Final Evaluation of the First Phase and Data Production

VENμS (Vegetation and Environment New micro (μ) Satellite) is a micro satellite launched in 2017 by the Israeli Space Agency (ISA) and the French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). VENμS is a research satellite containing two very different devices: an electric Hall effect thruster and a multispectral optical camera. This paper focuses on the multispectral camera. The camera provides images at a resolution of 5 m, with a field of view of 27 km, and the orbit of the satellite was chosen to allow us to revisit of each observed site with constant angles every second day. In November 2020, VENμS ended the first phase of its mission. This phase, called VM01, allowed us to provide about 150 accurate time series over selected scientific sites over almost three years. Extensive work was conducted to calibrate the camera and assess the quality of the products. Not everything worked as planned before launch and a large amount of work was necessary to correct some defects of the camera or to improve the geometric registration of images. This article establishes the image quality VM01 final assessment including the presentation of radiometric and geometric calibration methods, the estimation of instrument performances and their associated temporal stabilities and the monitoring activities. In addition, it highlights the whole mechanism of data programming, reception and production. The end of VM01 phase is not the end of the VENμS mission, and a new phase started on a one-day repeat orbit.

The Private Investigator

The Private Investigator

Space Modular Operations: A Powerful Method to Guarantee Flight Rules’ Compliance

Reducing operational risk and complexity is a key feature when designing mission operations. One of the metrics that influences complexity is the command and control concept for the flight segment. Flight rules’ and constraints’ compliance has always been a difficult endeavor: rules for every single command have to be considered, depending on its interaction with the spacecraft state and ongoing activities: particularly during critical operations when it is frequently necessary to handle real-time decision-making during ground contacts. We present here a space modular operations framework to be used by both mission development and operations teams from the very beginning of mission design until the mission end of life. This framework is based on a few types of reusable modular elements, which are used in specific roles to implement the mission testing and operations effort, as well as to ensure compliance with flight rules and constraints. We show how this approach reduces operational complexity by an order of magnitude, proportionally increasing the confidence in complying with all the mission flight rules and constraints, improving mission safety.

Interstellar probe – Destination: Universe!

The idea of an “Outer solar system probe: to be aimed away from the Sun in the plane of the ecliptic” dates from a report of the “Simpson Committee” of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences in March of 1960. After many studies and name changes, what is now known as “Interstellar Probe” has matured as a concept for making new discoveries that can be made in no other way, by going places yet to be explored. The central technical question has always been propulsion with “near-future” capabilities taken as the backdrop for defining the mission requirements. However, the real issue has always been to unite compelling science with engineering and technical reality. With that perspective in mind the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has been tasked by the NASA Heliophysics Division to (re-)study the mission and provide a Technical Report to be delivered late 2021 for input to next Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey. This “pragmatic Interstellar Probe” of the study is a mission through the outer heliosphere and to the nearby “Very Local” interstellar medium (VLISM), uses today's technology to take the first explicit step on the path of interstellar exploration, and can pave the way, scientifically, technically, and programmatically for more ambitious future journeys (and more ambitious science goals). To enforce these goals broadly-based engineering requirements include (1) readiness to launch no later than January 1, 2030; (2) capability to transmit useful scientific data from 1000 au; (3) powered by no more than 600 W (electric) at the beginning of the mission and no more than half of that at mission's end; and, (4) lifetime of no less than 50 years. To travel as far and as fast as possible with available technology, the use of the Space Launch System Block 2 (SLS B2) cargo version is enabling: carrying the spacecraft as well as a 3rd and 4th stage, solar system escape speeds of at least twice that of Voyager 1 (i.e., up to 7.2 au/yr) should be possible. We provide a top-level summary of work accomplished to date, focusing on how the science goals drive and are affected by telecommunication options, guidance and control requirements, trajectory options, and the baseline system architecture and approach.“It isn't about where we are going. It's about the journey out there."

The Transition from MODIS to VIIRS for Global Volcano Thermal Monitoring.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is one of the most-used sensors for monitoring volcanoes and has been providing time series of Volcanic Radiative Power (VRP) on a global scale for two decades now. In this work, we analyzed the data provided by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) by using the Middle Infrared Observation of Volcanic Activity (MIROVA) algorithm, originally developed to analyze MODIS data. The resulting VRP is compared with both the MIROVAMODIS data as well as with the Fire Radiative Power (FRP), distributed by the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS). The analysis on 9 active volcanoes reveals that VIIRS data analyzed with the MIROVA algorithm allows detecting ~60% more alerts than MODIS, due to a greater number of overpasses (+30%) and improved quality of VIIRS radiance data. Furthermore, the comparison with the nighttime FIRMS database indicates greater effectiveness of the MIROVA algorithm in detecting low-intensity (<10 MW) thermal anomalies (up to 90% more alerts than FIRMS). These results confirm the great potential of VIIRS to complement, replace and improve MODIS capabilities for global volcano thermal monitoring, because of the future end of Terra and Aqua Earth-observing satellite mission of National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA).

Crash Prediction Using Deep Learning in a Disorienting Spaceflight Analog Balancing Task.

Were astronauts forced to land on the surface of Mars using manual control of their vehicle, they would not have familiar gravitational cues because Mars’ gravity is only 0.38 g. They could become susceptible to spatial disorientation, potentially causing mission ending crashes. In our earlier studies, we secured blindfolded participants into a Multi-Axis Rotation System (MARS) device that was programmed to behave like an inverted pendulum. Participants used a joystick to stabilize around the balance point. We created a spaceflight analog condition by having participants dynamically balance in the horizontal roll plane, where they did not tilt relative to the gravitational vertical and therefore could not use gravitational cues to determine their position. We found 90% of participants in our spaceflight analog condition reported spatial disorientation and all of them showed it in their data. There was a high rate of crashing into boundaries that were set at ± 60° from the balance point. Our goal was to see whether we could use deep learning to predict the occurrence of crashes before they happened. We used stacked gated recurrent units (GRU) to predict crash events 800 ms in advance with an AUC (area under the curve) value of 99%. When we prioritized reducing false negatives we found it resulted in more false positives. We found that false negatives occurred when participants made destabilizing joystick deflections that rapidly moved the MARS away from the balance point. These unpredictable destabilizing joystick deflections, which occurred in the duration of time after the input data, are likely a result of spatial disorientation. If our model could work in real time, we calculated that immediate human action would result in the prevention of 80.7% of crashes, however, if we accounted for human reaction times (∼400 ms), only 30.3% of crashes could be prevented, suggesting that one solution could be an AI taking temporary control of the spacecraft during these moments.

No swan song for Sun-as-a-star helioseismology: Performances of the Solar-SONG prototype for individual mode characterisation

The GOLF instrument on board SoHO has been in operation for almost 25 years, but the ageing of the instrument has now strongly affected its performance, especially in the low-frequency pressure-mode (p-mode) region. At the end of the SoHO mission, the ground-based network BiSON will remain the only facility able to perform Sun-integrated helioseismic observations. Therefore, we want to assess the helioseismic performances of an échelle spectrograph such as SONG. The high precision of such an instrument and the quality of the data acquired for asteroseismic purposes call for an evaluation of the instrument’s ability to perform global radial-velocity measurements of the solar disk. Data acquired during the Solar-SONG 2018 observation campaign at the Teide Observatory are used to study mid- and low-frequency p modes. A Solar-SONG time series of 30 days in duration is reduced with a combination of the traditional IDL iSONG pipeline and a new Python pipeline described in this paper. A mode fitting method built around a Bayesian approach is then performed on the Solar-SONG and contemporaneous GOLF, BiSON, and HMI data. For this contemporaneous time series, Solar-SONG is able to characterise p modes at a lower frequency than BiSON or GOLF (1750 μHz versus 1946 and 2157 μHz, respectively), while for HMI it is possible to characterise a mode at 1686 μHz. The decrease in GOLF sensitivity is then evaluated through the evolution of its low-frequency p-mode characterisation abilities over the years: a set of 30-day-long GOLF time series, considered at the same period of the year from 1996 to 2017, is analysed. We show that it is more difficult to accurately characterise p modes in the range 1680 to 2160 μHz when considering the most recent time series. By comparing the global power level of different frequency regions, we also observe that the Solar-SONG noise level in the 1000 to 1500 μHz region is lower than for any GOLF subseries considered in this work. While the global p-mode power-level ratio is larger for GOLF during the first years of the mission, this ratio decreases over the years and is bested by Solar-SONG for every time series after 2000. All these observations strongly suggest that efforts should be made towards deploying more Solar-SONG nodes in order to acquire longer time series with better duty cycles.