9,554 research outputs found
A determination of the radio-planetary frame tie from comparison of Earth orientation parameters
The orientation of the reference frame of radio source catalogs relative to that of planetary ephemerides, or 'frame tie,' can be a major systematic error source for interplanetary spacecraft orbit determination. This work presents a method of determining the radio-planetary frame tie from a comparison of very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) and lunar laser ranging (LLR) station coordinate and earth orientation parameter estimates. A frame tie result is presented with an accuracy of 25 nrad
Photon statistical limitations for daytime optical tracking
Tracking of interplanetary spacecraft equipped with optical communication systems by using astrometric instruments is being investigated by JPL. Existing instruments are designed to work at night and, for bright sources, are limited by tropospheric errors. To provide full coverage of the solar system, astrometric tracking instruments must either be capable of daytime operation or be space-based. The integration times necessary for the ground-based daytime photon statistical errors to reach a given accuracy level (5 to 50 nanoradians) were computed for an ideal astrometric instrument. The required photon statistical integration times are found to be shorter than the tropospheric integrations times for the ideal detector. Since the astrometric need not be limited by photon statistics even under daytime conditions, it may be fruitful to investigate instruments for daytime optical tracking
Preliminary error budget for an optical ranging system: Range, range rate, and differenced range observables
Future missions to the outer solar system or human exploration of Mars may use telemetry systems based on optical rather than radio transmitters. Pulsed laser transmission can be used to deliver telemetry rates of about 100 kbits/sec with an efficiency of several bits for each detected photon. Navigational observables that can be derived from timing pulsed laser signals are discussed. Error budgets are presented based on nominal ground stations and spacecraft-transceiver designs. Assuming a pulsed optical uplink signal, two-way range accuracy may approach the few centimeter level imposed by the troposphere uncertainty. Angular information can be achieved from differenced one-way range using two ground stations with the accuracy limited by the length of the available baseline and by clock synchronization and troposphere errors. A method of synchronizing the ground station clocks using optical ranging measurements is presented. This could allow differenced range accuracy to reach the few centimeter troposphere limit
Southern hemisphere stratospheric circulation as indicated by shipboard meteorological rocket observations
Southern Hemisphere stratospheric circulation as indicated by shipboard meteorological rocket observation
An experiment designed to determine the diurnal temperature and wind variation and to detect possible errors in rocketsonde temperature measurements in the upper stratosphere
Diurnal temperature and wind variation measured by instrumentation aboard meteorological rockets - detection of possible errors in temperature measurements in upper stratospher
Analysing powers for the reaction and for np elastic scattering from 270 to 570 MeV
The analysing power of the reaction for neutron energies between threshold and 570 MeV has been determined
using a transversely polarised neutron beam at PSI. The reaction has been
studied in a kinematically complete measurement using a time-of-flight
spectrometer with large acceptance. Analysing powers have been determined as a
function of the c.m. pion angle in different regions of the proton-proton
invariant mass. They are compared to other data from the reactions and . The np elastic scattering analysing power was determined as a
by-product of the measurements.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, subitted to EPJ-
The reaction from threshold up to 570 MeV
The reaction has been studied in a
kinematically complete measurement with a large acceptance time-of-flight
spectrometer for incident neutron energies between threshold and 570 MeV. The
proton-proton invariant mass distributions show a strong enhancement due to the
pp() final state interaction. A large anisotropy was found in the
pion angular distributions in contrast to the reaction . At small energies, a large forward/backward asymmetry has been
observed. From the measured integrated cross section , the isoscalar cross section has been extracted.
Its energy dependence indicates that mainly partial waves with Sp final states
contribute. Note: Due to a coding error, the differential cross sections as shown in Fig. 9 are too small by a factor of two, and
inn Table 3 the differential cross sections
are too large by a factor of . The integrated cross sections and all
conclusions remain unchanged. A corresponding erratum has been submitted and
accepted by European Physics Journal.Comment: 18 pages, 16 figure
Using BATSE to measure gamma-ray burst polarization
We describe a technique for measuring the polarization of hard x-rays from γ-ray bursts based on the angular distribution of that portion of the flux which is scattered off the top of the Earth’s atmosphere. The scattering cross section depends not only on the scatter angle itself, but on the orientation of the scatter angle with respect to the incident polarization vector. Consequently, the distribution of the observed albedo flux will depend on the direction and the polarization properties (i.e., the level of polarization and polarization angle) of the source. Although the BATSE design (with its large field-of-view for each detector) is not optimized for albedo polarimetry, we have nonetheless investigated the feasibility of this technique using BATSE data
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