The NASA Spitzer Space Telescope

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility) is the fourth and final facility in the Great Observatories Program, joining Hubble Space Telescope (1990), the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (1991–2000), and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (1999). Spitzer, with a sensitivity that is almost three orders of magnitude greater than that of any previous ground-based and space-based infrared observatory, is expected to revolutionize our understanding of the creation of the universe, the formation and evolution of primitive galaxies, the origin of stars and planets, and the chemical evolution of the universe. This review presents a brief overview of the scientific objectives and history of infrared astronomy. We discuss Spitzer's expected role in infrared astronomy for the new millennium. We describe pertinent details of the design, construction, launch, in-orbit checkout, and operations of the observatory and summarize some science highlights from the first two and a half years of Spitzer operations. More information about Spitzer can be found at http://spitzer.caltech.edu/

COBE's search for structure in the Big Bang

The launch of Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and the definition of Earth Observing System (EOS) are two of the major events at NASA-Goddard. The three experiments contained in COBE (Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR), Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS), and Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE)) are very important in measuring the big bang. DMR measures the isotropy of the cosmic background (direction of the radiation). FIRAS looks at the spectrum over the whole sky, searching for deviations, and DIRBE operates in the infrared part of the spectrum gathering evidence of the earliest galaxy formation. By special techniques, the radiation coming from the solar system will be distinguished from that of extragalactic origin. Unique graphics will be used to represent the temperature of the emitting material. A cosmic event will be modeled of such importance that it will affect cosmological theory for generations to come. EOS will monitor changes in the Earth's geophysics during a whole solar color cycle

Reduction of Software Development Costs

Sombrero is a distributed single address space operating system (SASOS). DSM and persistence are part of the fundamental nature of a distributed SASOS because the common virtual address space is distributed, shared and persistent. We believe that the major reason for using a SASOS is that many useful applications would be less complex if written to run on a SASOS rather than under a conventional process-oriented multiple address space operating system (MASOS). This paper examines the potential for reduction in software complexity of applications developed under the Single Address Space Operating System Sombrero versus those developed under a conventional process-oriented operating system, Windows 2000. To test Sombrero`s impact on development costs, a set of sample database applications with varying functionality was developed under Windows 2000 and Sombrero. Using accepted software engineering metrics, the software complexity of these systems was compared. The results obtained indicate a substantial reduction of software complexity and software development costs in a single address space environment such as that provided by Sombrero. Reasons for this based on the code required to perform the same tasks in the Sombrero and Windows 2000 environments are presented

Engineering Automation for Reliable Software Interim Progress Report (10/01/2000 - 09/30/2001)

Prepared for: U.S. Army Research Office P.O. Box 12211 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2211The objective of our effort is to develop a scientific basis for producing reliable software that is also flexible and cost effective for the DoD distributed software domain. This objective addresses the long term goals of increasing the quality of service provided by complex systems while reducing development risks, costs, and time. Our work focuses on "wrap and glue" technology based on a domain specific distributed prototype model. The key to making the proposed approach reliable, flexible, and cost-effective is the automatic generation of glue and wrappers based on a designer's specification. The "wrap and glue" approach allows system designers to concentrate on the difficult interoperability problems and defines solutions in terms of deeper and more difficult interoperability issues, while freeing designers from implementation details. Specific research areas for the proposed effort include technology enabling rapid prototyping, inference for design checking, automatic program generation, distributed real-time scheduling, wrapper and glue technology, and reliability assessment and improvement. The proposed technology will be integrated with past research results to enable a quantum leap forward in the state of the art for rapid prototyping.U. S. Army Research Office P.O. Box 12211 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-22110473-MA-SPApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

April 25, 2003, FY2003 Progress Summary and FY2002 Program Plan, Statement of Work and Deliverables for Development of High Average Power Diode-Pumped Solid State Lasers,and Complementary Technologies, for Applications in Energy and Defense

The High Average Power Laser Program (HAPL) is a multi-institutional, synergistic effort to develop inertial fusion energy (IFE). This program is building a physics and technology base to complement the laser-fusion science being pursued by DOE Defense programs in support of Stockpile Stewardship. The primary institutions responsible for overseeing and coordinating the research activities are the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The current LLNL proposal is a companion document to the one submitted by NRL, for which the driver development element is focused on the krypton fluoride excimer laser option. The NRL and LLNL proposals also jointly pursue complementary activities with the associated rep-rated laser technologies relating to target fabrication, target injection, final optics, fusion chamber, target physics, materials and power plant economics. This proposal requests continued funding in FY03 to support LLNL in its program to build a 1 kW, 100 J, diode-pumped, crystalline laser, as well as research into high gain fusion target design, fusion chamber issues, and survivability of the final optic element. These technologies are crucial to the feasibility of inertial fusion energy power plants and also have relevance in rep-rated stewardship experiments. The HAPL Program pursues technologies needed for laser-driven IFE. System level considerations indicate that a rep-rated laser technology will be needed, operating at 5-10 Hz. Since a total energy of {approx}2 MJ will ultimately be required to achieve suitable target gain with direct drive targets, the architecture must be scaleable. The Mercury Laser is intended to offer such an architecture. Mercury is a solid state laser that incorporates diodes, crystals and gas cooling technologies

Proceedings of Monterey Workshop 2001 Engineering Automation for Sofware Intensive System Integration

The 2001 Monterey Workshop on Engineering Automation for Software Intensive System Integration was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office and the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency. It is our pleasure to thank the workshop advisory and sponsors for their vision of a principled engineering solution for software and for their many-year tireless effort in supporting a series of workshops to bring everyone together.This workshop is the 8 in a series of International workshops. The workshop was held in Monterey Beach Hotel, Monterey, California during June 18-22, 2001. The general theme of the workshop has been to present and discuss research works that aims at increasing the practical impact of formal methods for software and systems engineering. The particular focus of this workshop was "Engineering Automation for Software Intensive System Integration". Previous workshops have been focused on issues including, "Real-time & Concurrent Systems", "Software Merging and Slicing", "Software Evolution", "Software Architecture", "Requirements Targeting Software" and "Modeling Software System Structures in a fastly moving scenario".Office of Naval ResearchAir Force Office of Scientific Research Army Research OfficeDefense Advanced Research Projects AgencyApproved for public release, distribution unlimite

System engineering and evolution decision support, Final Progress Report (05/01/1998 - 09-30-2001)

The objective of our effort is to develop a scientific basis for system engineering automation and decision support. This objective addresses the long term goals of increasing the quality of service provided complex systems while reducing development risks, costs, and time. Our work focused on decision support for designing operations of complex modular systems that can include embedded software. Emphasis areas included engineering automation capabilities in the areas of design modifications, design records, reuse, and automatic generation of design representations such as real-time schedules and software.U.S. Army Research OfficeFunding number(s): DSAM 90387, DWAM 80013, DWAM 90215

Apprehensions and Possible Misunderstandings

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