Design and Analysis of the Sphinx-NG CubeSat

A CubeSat was designed to support a mission to perform solar and X-ray spectroscopy using the Sphinx-NG instrument. The work consisted of designing the electric power (EPS), telecommunication, computer and data handling (C&DH), and thermal control subsystems. C&DH system design included estimating memory and computational requirements for each operational mode. A power budget was generated for the spacecraft and the solar arrays were sized to generate a maximum power of 12.4 W. The telecommunication subsystem was designed supporting a downlink capability of approximately 101 Mb/day. A thermal model included time-dependent spacecraft illumination and internal power generation. Results were used to estimate the range of spacecraft temperatures and evaluate thermal control options

Remote Sensing

This dual conception of remote sensing brought us to the idea of preparing two different books; in addition to the first book which displays recent advances in remote sensing applications, this book is devoted to new techniques for data processing, sensors and platforms. We do not intend this book to cover all aspects of remote sensing techniques and platforms, since it would be an impossible task for a single volume. Instead, we have collected a number of high-quality, original and representative contributions in those areas

A technical, financial, and policy analysis of the RAMSES RFID inventory management system for NASA's International Space Station: prospects for SBIR/STTR technology infusion

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics; and, (S.M. in Technology and Policy)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-76).Engineering, management, and social science methodologies have been employed to analyze a new asset tracking and management system for human spaceflight applications. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Aurora Flight Sciences developed Rule-based analytic Asset Management for Space Exploration System (RAMSES) via NASA Small- Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I and Phase II contracts. RAMSES leverages Generation II passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to automate the tracking the tens of thousands of small, portable cargo assets that are currently stored onboard the International Space Station (ISS). A Monte Carlo Net Present Value analysis found that RAMSES is likely to have significant positive value for NASA when ISS inventory transactions are concentrated in a subset of the total cargo transfer bag (CTB) population, and/or if ISS Operations are continued into 2018/2020. The volume, mass, and accuracy of the RAMSES system have a significant impact upon the estimated NPV. Testing of the prototype hardware in reduced-gravity conditions reaffirmed the viability of the system. Metals cargo objects were detected with up to 100% accuracy, paper with 96%, and water with roughly 93%. Finally, a comparative analysis of RAMSES and five other NASA Small-Business Innovation Research (SBIR) / Small-Business Technology Transfer (STTR) projects identified three non-technical characteristics and/or informal processes that might be unique to SBIR/STTR technologies that are successfully infused into the mainstream NASA innovation system. These included pre-proposal knowledge exchanges between companies and NASA, strong matching of a project with a relevant NASA COTR, and the availability of an infusion opportunityby Abraham T. Grindle.S.M.in Technology and PolicyS.M

IAU Dark and Quiet Skies, UNOOSA, NoirLabs, SATCON2, International Law Working Group Report

International Law Working Group of the IAU's Dark and Quiet Skies Conference; objective to advise the UN Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Spac

Dark and Quiet Skies II Working Group Reports:

This Report presents the main results of the Conference “Dark and Quiet Skies for Science and Society II” which took place on-line on 3–7 October 2021. This conference was the logical follow-up of the first one, organized as an on-line workshop with the same title on 5–9 October 2020. Both conferences were co-organized by UNOOSA, IAU and the Government of Spain and were well attended. The focus of the second conference was about the feasibility of implementing the recommendations presented by the first one in its extensive report. The main qualifying difference between the first and the second conferences was a more explicit involvement of the industrial stakeholders and of space policy experts, whose contributions were instrumental in presenting a credible review of the proposed mitigating measures as well as of possible regulatory guidelines

Machine Learning Algorithm for the Scansion of Old Saxon Poetry

Several scholars designed tools to perform the automatic scansion of poetry in many languages, but none of these tools deal with Old Saxon or Old English. This project aims to be a first attempt to create a tool for these languages. We implemented a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) model to perform the automatic scansion of Old Saxon and Old English poems. Since this model uses supervised learning, we manually annotated the Heliand manuscript, and we used the resulting corpus as labeled dataset to train the model. The evaluation of the performance of the algorithm reached a 97% for the accuracy and a 99% of weighted average for precision, recall and F1 Score. In addition, we tested the model with some verses from the Old Saxon Genesis and some from The Battle of Brunanburh, and we observed that the model predicted almost all Old Saxon metrical patterns correctly misclassified the majority of the Old English input verses

End-to-End Resilience Mechanisms for Network Transport Protocols

The universal reliance on and hence the need for resilience in network communications has been well established. Current transport protocols are designed to provide fixed mechanisms for error remediation (if any), using techniques such as ARQ, and offer little or no adaptability to underlying network conditions, or to different sets of application requirements. The ubiquitous TCP transport protocol makes too many assumptions about underlying layers to provide resilient end-to-end service in all network scenarios, especially those which include significant heterogeneity. Additionally the properties of reliability, performability, availability, dependability, and survivability are not explicitly addressed in the design, so there is no support for resilience. This dissertation presents considerations which must be taken in designing new resilience mechanisms for future transport protocols to meet service requirements in the face of various attacks and challenges. The primary mechanisms addressed include diverse end-to-end paths, and multi-mode operation for changing network conditions

Adaptation of the IEEE 802.11 protocol for inter-satellite links in LEO satellite networks

Knowledge of the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of a ceramic material is important in many application areas. Whilst the CTE can be measured, it would be useful to be able to predict the expansion behaviour of multiphase materials.. There are several models for the CTE, however, most require a knowledge of the elastic properties of the constituent phases and do not take account ofthe microstructural features of the material. If the CTE could be predicted on the basis of microstructural information, this would then lead to the ability to engineer the microstructure of multiphase ceramic materials to produce acceptable thermal expansion behaviour. To investigate this possibility, magnesia-magnesium aluminate sp~el (MMAS) composites, consisting of a magnesia matrix and magnesium aluminate s~ne'l (MAS) particles, were studied. Having determined a procedure to produce MAS fr alumina and magnesia, via solid state sintering, magnesia-rich compositions wit ~ various magnesia contents were prepared to make the MMAS composites. Further, the l\.1MAS composites prepared from different powders (i.e. from an alumina-magnesia mixture ahd from a magnesia-spinel powder) were compared. Com starch was added into the powder mixtures before sintering to make porous microstructures. Microstructural development and thermal expansion behaviour ofthe MMAS composites were investigated. Microstructures of the MAS and the MMAS composites as well as their porous bodies were quaritified from backscattered electron micrographs in terms of the connectivity of solids i.e. solid contiguity by means of linear intercept counting. Solid contiguity decreased with increasing pore content and varied with pore size, pore shape and pore distribution whereas the phase contiguity depended strongly on the chemical composition and was less influenced by porosity. ' The thermal expansion behaviour of the MAS and the MMAS composites between 100 and 1000 °C was determined experimentally. Variation in the CTE ofthe MAS relates to the degree of spinel formation while the thermal expansion of the MMAS composites depends strongly on phase content. However, the MMAS composites with similar phase compositions but made from different manufacturing processes showed differences in microstructural features and thermal expansion behaviour. Predictions of the CTE values for composites based on a simple rule-of-mixtures (ROM) using volume fraction were compared with the measured data. A conventional ROM accurately predicted the effective CTE of a range of dense alumina-silicon carbide particulate composites but was not very accurate for porous multiphase structures. It provided an upper bound prediction as all experimental values were lower. Hence, the conventional ROM was modified to take account of quantitative microstructural parameters obtained from solid contiguity. The modified ROM predicted lower values and gave a good agreement with the experimental data. Thus, it has been shown that quantitative microstructural information can be used to predict the CTE of multiphase ceramic materials with complex microstructures.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo