Space Science Applications Research Articles

Surface-micromachined thermoelectric infrared focal-plane array with high detectivity for room temperature operation

Thermopile detectors are particularly well suited for spectral imaging, space science applications, track recording, presence detection and applications with low energy consumption. The purpose of this work is the fabrication of a surface-micromachined 2-D high detectivity thermopile array using a highly effective BiSb/Sb thermocouple materials combination. The thermoelectric array is built on 8×8 pixels with an active area of 100μm in square, which are wired directly. Thermopile structure and absorber area are manufactured upon a sacrificial layer based on polyimide, which is removed at the end of the manufacturing process. Thermoelectric layers as well as wiring layers has been patterned almost exclusively by lift-off technique in order to obtain very small structure dimension with high reliability as well as high integration level. The active area of detectors can be equipped with two absorber types for different application, a broadband colloidal silver black layer as well as a quarter wavelength arrangement for the MIR wavelength range from 8 to 14μm. The detectivity of so manufactured FPAs is about 1×109 Jones exceeding most of the state-of-the-art thermopile detectors.

Introduction to this Special Issue

The theme of this special issue of the Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves is “THz for Life.” This theme reflects the fact that THz science and technology now span application areas that extend from the origins of life in the universe to the benefit of life on Earth, from applications in astronomy and space science to new techniques and instruments in biology, biochemistry and the life sciences. “THz for Life” also reflects the hope and belief that this important and still expanding field will serve as a research niche for young scientists and engineers that may last them throughout their own career life. All of the articles which appear were solicited by the editor and reflect topics of interest from the 33rd International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves held in Pasadena, California, USA in September 2008. Considering that spare time has now become one of the rarest commodities (next to funding) amongst our current generation of career scientists and engineers, the editor would like to personally thank all of the authors who contributed their time to the invited papers which appear in this special issue. The editor would also like to thank the many reviewers who selflessly gave up some of their precious time to screen and add suggestions to help in finalizing the contributed papers. Lastly, no special issue would be appearing in your mailbox or on your shelf if it were not for the tireless efforts of Editor-in-Chief, Professor Toshitaka Idehara, and the staff at Springer, Jeanine Jordan, Jeanine Burke, Rebecca Nilson and Eloisa Orilla. The recent rise in the number of people who are now familiar with, or at least have heard the term Terahertz, is remarkable. Even more remarkable are the numbers of papers (and proposals) which now include THz in their title or abstract [1]. Our community is fortunate in having both a long standing conference series and associated journal whose missions have been to collect, archive and disseminate technical and scientific knowledge and achievements in this broad interdisciplinary field which spans millimeter-waves to the far infrared and now benefits from the work of an even broader community of optical engineers. In this special issue the editors have tried to capture a J Infrared Milli Terahz Waves (2009) 30:1243–1244 DOI 10.1007/s10762-009-9570-y

RESTful implementation of geospatial services for Earth and Space Science applications

In the recent years, Representational State Transfer (REST) has been proposed as the architectural style for the World Wide Web. REST promises of scalability and simple deployment of Web Services seem to be particularly appealing for Earth and Space Science (ESS) applications. In fact, most of the available solutions for geospatial data sharing, applying standard interoperability specifications, require complex service-oriented infrastructures; these are powerful and extensible environments, but they usually result in difficult to deploy and manage for ESS research teams. Thus, ESS researchers would gain great benefit from an easy way of sharing geo-information using the international interoperability standards. The variety and complexity of geo-information sharing services poses several architectural issues; in fact these services encompass sensor planning and observation, coverages and features publication and retrieving, models and simulations running, data citation and annotation. Consequently, the adoption of a specific architectural style must be carefully evaluated against these specific requirements. In this work we analyse the existing geospatial services from an architectural perspective and investigate their possible RESTful implementation. Particular attention is paid to the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS). Possible benefits and drawbacks, along with open issues and possible solutions are discussed. Our investigation suggests that REST may fit well to the typical ESS research usage cases. However, the architectural choice (e.g. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) vs REST) will depend on a case-by-case analysis. Other important factors must be considered, such as the application context: a valuable example in point are the e-Business and e-Government application scenarios which require message based solutions – like those implemented by SOAP. In any case, there is a clear need for harmonization and reconciliation of these two approaches.

Semantic Web-based geospatial knowledge transformation

Earth and space science research and applications typically involve collecting and analyzing large volumes of geospatial data much of which is derived from other existing data by applying a scientific workflow. Such a step-by-step process can be viewed as a process of geospatial knowledge transformation, which often involves hypotheses, inferences and integrations to derive user-specific data products from the knowledge of domain experts. Our research is focused on reducing the transformation effort by providing component inference and integration tools. The Semantic Web envisions a new standardized information infrastructure to enable interoperable machine-to-machine interactions and automatic or semi-automatic service chaining for deriving knowledge over networks. This paper describes a generic framework and implementation of how the Semantic Web proceeds through the life cycle of geospatial knowledge transformation, from geospatial modeling (knowledge formalization), through model instantiation (service chain) to model execution (data product). Our approach relies on semantic integrations. A number of ontologies used to capture domain knowledge are introduced in this paper as the basis of knowledge bases for describing and reasoning geospatial data and services. Also, a semantically enabled geospatial catalog service is described to enable more effective discovery, automation and integration of geospatial data and services.

Tendril, adhesive disc and super adhesive effect of climbing plant

AbstractUnderstanding the super adhesion mechanism of biological system is of great scientific interest and a prerequisite for bioinspired design of adhesive systems. To investigate the versatile climbing plant requires the development of new methods. Here I present strategies to fully study the super adhesive effect of climbing plant Parthenocissus tricuspidata by the first time measuring the mass and the attached area of single adhesive disc, by further determining the microscopic structure and the adhesive strength of single adhesive disc and by finally elucidating the adhesion mechanism in cellular and molecular level using the classical theories and the proposed new hypothesis and model. I have measured that a single mature adhesive disc has an average mass of only about 0.0005 g, an average attached area of about 1.22 sq mm and an adhesive force of about 13.7 N. I have found that a single adhesive disc can on average support a weight produced together by the stem, leaf, branchlet and tendril which is 260 times greater than its own weight during the growing, and can sustain the maximum pulling force which is 2,800,000 times higher than that produced by its own weight. Microscopic experiments show some new microstructures which have never been reported and reveal that the adhesive disc has super adhesive property which inspires us to fabricate a lot of mimic adhesives that have potential applications in biomedical science, bioelectronics and space science and technology.

Tendril, adhesive disc and super adhesive effect of climbing plant

AbstractUnderstanding the super adhesion mechanism of biological system is of great scientific interest and a prerequisite for bioinspired design of adhesive systems. To investigate the versatile climbing plant requires the development of new methods. Here I present strategies to fully study the super adhesive effect of climbing plant Parthenocissus tricuspidata by the first time measuring the mass and the attached area of single adhesive disc, by further determining the microscopic structure and the adhesive strength of single adhesive disc and by finally elucidating the adhesion mechanism in cellular and molecular level using the classical theories and the proposed new hypothesis and model. I have measured that a single mature adhesive disc has an average mass of only about 0.0005 g, an average attached area of about 1.22 sq mm and an adhesive force of about 13.7 N. I have found that a single adhesive disc can on average support a weight produced together by the stem, leaf, branchlet and tendril which is 260 times greater than its own weight during the growing, and can sustain the maximum pulling force which is 2,800,000 times higher than that produced by its own weight. Microscopic experiments show some new microstructures which have never been reported and reveal that the adhesive disc has super adhesive property which inspires us to fabricate a lot of mimic adhesives that have potential applications in biomedical science, bioelectronics and space science and technology.

THz Instruments for Space

Terahertz technology has been driven largely by applications in astronomy and space science. For more than three decades cosmochemists, molecular spectroscopists, astrophysicists, and Earth and planetary scientists have used submillimeter-wave or terahertz sensors to identify, catalog and map lightweight gases, atoms and molecules in Earth and planetary atmospheres, in regions of interstellar dust and star formation, and in new and old galaxies, back to the earliest days of the universe, from both ground based and more recently, orbital platforms. The past ten years have witnessed the launch and successful deployment of three satellite instruments with spectral line heterodyne receivers above 300 GHz (SWAS, Odin, and MIRO) and a fourth platform, Aura MLS, that reaches to 2520 GHz, crossing the terahertz threshold from the microwave side for the first time. The former Soviet Union launched the first bolometric detectors for the submillimeter way back in 1974 and operated the first space based submillimeter wave telescope on the Salyut 6 station for four months in 1978. In addition, continuum, Fourier transform and spectrophotometer instruments on IRAS, ISO, COBE, the recent Spitzer Space Telescope and Japan's Akari satellite have all encroached into the submillimeter from the infrared using direct detection bolometers or photoconductors. At least two more major satellites carrying submillimeter wave instruments are nearing completion, Herschel and Planck, and many more are on the drawing boards in international and national space organizations such as NASA, ESA, DLR, CNES, and JAXA. This paper reviews some of the programs that have been proposed, completed and are still envisioned for space applications in the submillimeter and terahertz spectral range.

Development of wideband X-ray and gamma-ray spectrometer using transmission-type, large-area APD

The avalanche photodiode (APD) is a high-performance and compact light sensor recently applied in various fields of experimental physics. Among several types of APDs, the reach-through APD offers an advantage in direct X-ray detection, thanks to its thick depletion layer ( ⩾ 100 μ m ) in front of the amplification region. This type of APD is also sensitive to weak scintillation light from gamma-ray scintillators with a high quantum efficiency of ∼ 80 % (at λ ≃ 500 nm ). In this paper, we propose a novel design of a compact X-ray-to-gamma-ray detector widely applicable between 1 keV and several hundreds of keV. The prototype consists of a reach-through APD (transmission type) optically coupled with a cubic CsI(Tl) crystal 4 × 4 × 4 mm 3 in size. By applying the pulse shape discrimination technique to the APD output, we successfully discriminated the X-ray signals directly detected within the APD (1–40 keV), and gamma-ray signals absorbed in a CsI(Tl) scintillator (10–800 keV) located immediately behind the APD. Optimum FWHM energy resolutions of 15.1 ± 0.2 % , 6.6 ± 0.4 % , and 7.6 ± 0.1 % were obtained for 5.9 keV X-rays, 32 keV X-rays, and 662 keV gamma rays, respectively, measured at + 20 ∘ C . This stacked configuration is viable for various future applications in space science and nuclear medicine.

TERAHERTZ HETERODYNE IMAGING PART I: INTRODUCTION AND TECHNIQUES

The authors present their ongoing work on terahertz heterodyne imaging techniques derived from space science applications and components. In Part I, introductory information and general techniques are provided. Part II contains descriptions of four different heterodyne imaging instruments that have been established at the authors’ facilities. In Part III selected applications are discussed. Parts II and III will appear in subsequent issues of this journal.

Space science applications of cryogenic detectors

The improved performance of cryogenic detectors has drastically enhanced their utilization range, allowing a number of space-based applications, with particular emphasis on astronomical observations. In this paper we provide an overview of the main applications of cryogenic detectors onboard spacecraft, together with a description of the key technologies and detection techniques used or being considered for space science missions. A summary of the cryogenic instrumentation technologies is also presented. Possible instruments for future astrophysics space missions are also discussed, using X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy mission, presently proposed by ESA as a post XMM-Newton project as a reference.

Hollow polycarbonate waveguides with inner Cu coatings for delivery of terahertz radiation

Terahertz (THz) radiation has important applications in spectroscopy, imaging, and space science. Fiber optics for the THz region have been limited to rigid hollow metallic waveguides or short lengths of solid-core transparent dielectrics such as sapphire and plastic. We have fabricated flexible, hollow polycarbonate waveguides with interior Cu coatings for broadband THz transmission using simple liquid-phase chemistry techniques. The losses for these hollow-core guides were measured using a tunable, cw single-mode far IR laser. The losses for the best guides were found to be less than four dB/m and the single mode of the laser was preserved for the smaller bore waveguides.

Distributed geant4 simulation in medical and space science applications using DIANE framework and the GRID

Distributed computing is one of the most important trends in IT which has recently gained significance for large-scale scientific applications.Distributed Analysis Environment (DIANE) [1] is a R&D study, focusing on semi-interactive parallel and remote data analysis and simulation, which has been conducted at CERN. DIANE provides necessary software infrastructure for parallel scientific applications in the master-worker model. Advanced error recovery policies, automatic book-keeping of distributed jobs and on-line monitoring and control tools are provided. DIANE makes a transparent use of a number of different middleware implementations such as load balancing service (LSF, PBS, GRID Resource Broker, Condor) and security service (GSI, Kerberos, openssh).A number of distributed Geant 4 simulations have been deployed and tested, ranging from interactive radiotherapy treatment planning using dedicated clusters in hospitals, to globally-distributed simulations of astrophysics experiments using the European Data Grid middleware.This paper describes the general concepts behind the DIANE framework and results of the first tests with distributed Geant 4 simulations.

A TECHNICAL OVERVIEW OF THE “SUNTOWER” SOLAR POWER SATELLITE CONCEPT

During 1995–1996, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) conducted a far-reaching reexamination of the technologies, systems concepts and terrestrial markets that might be involved in future space solar power (SSP) systems. The principal objective of this “fresh look” study was to determine whether a solar power satellite (SPS) and associated systems could be defined that could deliver energy into terrestrial electrical power grids at prices equal to or below ground alternatives in a variety of markets, do so without major environmental drawbacks, and which could be developed at a fraction of the initial investment projected for the SPS Reference System of the late 1970s. One of the key concepts emerging from the “fresh look” SSP study is the “SunTower” SPS system. This concept exploits a variety of innovative technologies and design approaches to achieve a potential breakthrough in establishing the technical and programmatic feasibility on initial commercial SSP operations. Capable of being deployed to either low Earth orbit or middle Earth orbit altitudes and various inclinations, the SunTower concept involves essentially no in-space infrastructure and requires no unique heavy lift launch vehicle. The concept, which can provide power to global market places appears to allow up to a factor of 30:1 reduction in initial investment requirements, compared to the 1979 SPS Reference Concept. This paper presents a technical overview of the SunTower SPS concept, including key technologies, sensitivity trades, operational scenarios. Potential non-SPS space program uses of the SunTower concept and related technologies are identified, including human exploration, space science and commercial space applications.

Technical Assessment of Space Solar-Power Research Program

An independent analysis of current NASA studies on space solar power (SSP) by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics found many opportunities for international collaboration in an SSP program, including computer modeling, solar array technologies development, demonstrations of SSP-enabling technologies, identification and pursuit of multiple-use applications, wireless power transmission experiments and studies, joint use of certain facilities, and perhaps most important, a wide range of global policy, economic, environmental, and legal considerations. Key SSP technologies could find broad applications in human space exploration, science and robotic space exploration, national security missions, commercial space development, and terrestrial applications. New system configurations that substantially reduce SSP technical and economic risk, remarkable improvements in solar-power generation technologies, and significant advancements in structural, robotic, power management, and materials techno...

NASA-GSFC nano-satellite technology for Earth science missions

The NASA-GSFC Nano-satellite Technology Program is currently formulating solutions for 21st century Earth Science requirements. We anticipate that nano-satellite (~ 10 kg) and micro-satellite (10 to 100 kg) constellations will have important applications in both Earth and Space science. Such constellations, acting in unison and with a large degree of autonomy, could form “virtual platforms” of detailed remotely sensed measurements providing orders of magnitude more information than today's thinly-populated networks of LEO and GEO satellites. If the constellations include a variety of basic, versatile instruments, for example UV, VIS and IR hyperspectral spectrometers, then virtual platforms for different applications can be formed in space, on the fly, and “disassembled” later for other uses or to test other scientific hypotheses. Example applications include weather prediction, radiative/reflected energy measurements for global change studies, hazard warning and monitoring systems (fires, volcanoes, hurricanes, etc.), and in-situ measurements of Earth's magnetic field. For a wide range of applications, nano- and micro-satellite technology is likely to further the way NASA explores not only the Earth, but the solar system and beyond. Identifying the strategies and technologies that provide strong benefit to both the Earth and Space science programs will provide the best return on NASA's technology investment. This paper will highlight some possible Earth Science applications for nano- and micro-satellite constellations as well as the current status of planned NASA-GSFC nano/micro-satellite technology development.

Small aircraft as a tool for space applications education

A small unmanned aircraft has been developed to experiment and teach a class of space science and technology applications. The vehicle, a lenticular aerodyne, is equipped to perform training in remote sensing, communications, attitude control and navigation. The main advantage of this system consists in the reduced period of time necessary to understand and to adjust the phases of a mission, with low costs.

An initial evaluation of the Convex SPP-1000 for earth and space science applications

The Convex SPP-1000 is the most recent of the new generation of Scalable Parallel Computing systems being offered commercially. The SPP-1000 is distinguished by incorporating the first commercial version of directory based cache coherence mechanisms and the emerging Scalable Coherent Interface protocol to achieve a true global shared memory capability. Pairs of HP PA-RISC processors are combined in clusters of 8 processors using a cross-bar switch. Up to 16 clusters are interconnected using 4 ring networks in parallel with a distributed global cache. To evaluate this new system in a Beta test environment, the Goddard Space Flight Center conducted three classes of operational experiments with an emphasis on applications related to Earth and space science. A cluster was tested as a platform for executing a multiple program workload exploiting job-stream level parallelism. Synthetic programs were run to measure overhead costs of barrier, fork-join, and message passing synchronization primitives. A key problem for Earth and space science studies is gravitational N-body simulation of solar systems to galactic clusters. An efficient tree-code version of this problem was run to reveal scaling properties of the system and to measure the overall efficiency. This paper presents the experimental results and findings of this study and provides the earliest published evaluation of this new scalable architecture.

The National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University

Abstract The National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University is the premier intermediate-energy heavy-ion research facility on the North American continent. Funded by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) and by Michigan State University, the NSCL serves a large national and international user community. Research done at the NSCL is primarily devoted to basic experimental and theoretical nuclear physics, accelerator physics, associated instrumenta- tion R&D (research and development), and applications to meet specific so- cietal needs. In addition, about 5–10% of the beam time is allocated to support cross-disciplinary research, including atomic physics, condensed matter physics, space science, wear analysis, and medical applications of nuclear and accelerator physics tech- nology.

Solar Sail Halo Orbits Part II - Geocentric Case

The equations of motion of a geocentric orbiting high-performance solar sail are analyzed in a corotating reference frame with the axis of corotation directed along the Sun-Earth line. Stationary solutions are found to the equations of motion in the corotating frame that correspond to Earth-centered halo-type orbits when viewed from an inertial frame. The sail performance requirements are minimized and families of linearly stable trajectories identified. By patching these halo orbits together, it will be shown that complex new trajectories may be formed. Geocentric halo orbits may have useful space science and technology applications.

Electron Fermi acceleration in collapsing magnetic traps: Computational and analytical models

We consider the heating and acceleration of electrons trapped on magnetic field lines between approaching magnetic mirrors. Such a collapsing magnetic trap and consequent electron energization can occur whenever a curved (or straight) flux tube drifts into a relatively straight (or curved) perpendicular shock. Our relativistic, three‐dimensional, collisionless test particle simulations show that an initial thermal electron distribution is bulk heated while a few individual electrons are accelerated to many times their original energy before they escape the trap. Upstream field‐aligned beams and downstream pancake distributions perpendicular to the field are predicted. In the appropriate limit the simulation results agree well with a nonrelativistic analytic model of the distribution of escaping electrons which is based on the first adiabatic invariant and energy conservation between collisions with the mirrors. Space science and astrophysical applications are discussed.