Heat treatment procedure of the Aluminium 6061-T651 for the Ariel Telescope mirrors

The Atmospheric Remote-Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large Survey (Ariel) is the M4 mission adopted by ESA’s ”Cosmic Vision” program. Its launch is scheduled for 2029. The purpose of the mission is the study of exoplanetary atmospheres on a target of ∼ 1000 exoplanets. Ariel scientific payload consists of an off-axis, unobscured Cassegrain telescope. The light is directed towards a set of photometers and spectrometers with wavebands between 0.5 and 7.8 µm and operating at cryogenic temperatures. The Ariel Space Telescope consists of a primary parabolic mirror with an elliptical aperture of 1.1· 0.7 m, followed by a hyperbolic secondary, a parabolic collimating tertiary and a flat-folding mirror directing the output beam parallel to the optical bench; all in bare aluminium. The choice of bare aluminium for the realization of the mirrors is dictated by several factors: maximizing the heat exchange, reducing the costs of materials and technological advancement. To date, an aluminium mirror the size of Ariel’s primary has never been made. The greatest challenge is finding a heat treatment procedure that stabilizes the aluminium, particularly the Al6061T651 Laminated alloy. This paper describes the study and testing of the heat treatment procedure developed on aluminium samples of different sizes (from 50mm to 150mm diameter), on 0.7m diameter mirror, and discusses future steps

The detector control unit of the fine guidance sensor instrument on-board the ARIEL mission: design status

ARIEL is an ESA mission whose scientific goal is to investigate exoplanetary atmospheres. The payload is composed by two instruments: AIRS (ARIEL IR Spectrometer) and FGS (Fine Guidance System). The FGS detection chain is composed by two HgCdTe detectors and by the cold Front End Electronics (SIDECAR), kept at cryogenic temperatures, interfacing with the F-DCU (FGS Detector Control Unit) boards that we will describe thoroughly in this paper. The F-DCU are situated in the warm side of the payload in a box called FCU (FGS Control Unit) and contribute to the FGS VIS/NIR imaging and NIR spectroscopy. The F-DCU performs several tasks: drives the detectors, processes science data and housekeeping telemetries, manages the commands exchange between the FGS/DPU (Data Processing Unit) and the SIDECARs and provides high quality voltages to the detectors. This paper reports the F-DCU status, describing its architecture, the operation and the activities, past and future necessary for its development

The instrument control unit of the ARIEL payload: design evolution following the unit and payload subsystems SRR (system requirements review)

ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing InfraRed Large-survey) is a medium-class mission of the European Space Agency, part of the Cosmic Vision program, whose launch is foreseen by early 2029. ARIEL aims to study the composition of exoplanet atmospheres, their formation and evolution. The ARIEL’s target will be a sample of about 1000 planets observed with one or more of the following methods: transit, eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy, at both visible and infrared wavelengths simultaneously. The scientific payload is composed by a reflective telescope having a 1m-class elliptical primary mirror, built in solid Aluminium, and two focal-plane instruments: FGS and AIRS. FGS (Fine Guidance System)1 has the double purpose, as suggested by its name, of performing photometry (0.50-0.55 µm) and low resolution spectrometry over three bands (from 0.8 to 1.95 µm) and, simultaneously, to provide data to the spacecraft AOCS (Attitude and Orbit Control System) with a cadence of 10 Hz and contributing to reach a 0.02 arcsec pointing accuracy for bright targets. AIRS (ARIEL InfraRed Spectrometer) instrument will perform IR spectrometry in two wavelength ranges: between 1.95 and 3.9 µm (with a spectral resolution R > 100) and between 3.9 and 7.8 µm with a spectral resolution R > 30. This paper provides the status of the ICU (Instrument Control Unit), an electronic box whose purpose is to command and supply power to AIRS (as well as acquire science data from its two channels) and to command and control the TCU (Telescope Control Unit)

Preliminary surface charging analysis of Ariel payload dielectrics in early transfer orbit and L2-relevant space environment

Ariel [1] is the M4 mission of the ESA’s Cosmic Vision Program 2015-2025, whose aim is to characterize by lowresolution transit spectroscopy the atmospheres of over one thousand warm and hot exoplanets orbiting nearby stars. The operational orbit of the spacecraft is baselined as a large amplitude halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrangian point, as it offers the possibility of long uninterrupted observations in a fairly stable radiative and thermo-mechanical environment. A direct escape injection with a single passage through the Earth radiation belts and no eclipses is foreseen. The space environment around Earth and L2 presents significant design challenges to all spacecraft, including the effects of interactions with Sun radiation and charged particles owning to the surrounding plasma environment, potentially leading to dielectrics charging and unwanted electrostatic discharge (ESD) phenomena endangering the Payload operations and its data integrity. Here, we present some preliminary simulations and analyses about the Ariel Payload dielectrics and semiconductors charging along the transfer orbit from launch to L2 include

FEA testing the pre-flight Ariel primary mirror

Ariel (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey) is an ESA M class mission aimed at the study of exoplanets. The satellite will orbit in the lagrangian point L2 and will survey a sample of 1000 exoplanets simultaneously in visible and infrared wavelengths. The challenging scientific goal of Ariel implies unprecedented engineering efforts to satisfy the severe requirements coming from the science in terms of accuracy. The most important specification – an all-Aluminum telescope – requires very accurate design of the primary mirror (M1), a novel, off-set paraboloid honeycomb mirror with ribs, edge, and reflective surface. To validate such a mirror, some tests were carried out on a prototype – namely Pathfinder Telescope Mirror (PTM) – built specifically for this purpose. These tests, carried out at the Centre Spatial de Liège in Belgium – revealed an unexpected deformation of the reflecting surface exceeding a peek-to-valley of 1µm. Consequently, the test had to be re-run, to identify systematic errors and correct the setting for future tests on the final prototype M1. To avoid the very expensive procedure of developing a new prototype and testing it both at room and cryogenic temperatures, it was decided to carry out some numerical simulations. These analyses allowed first to recognize and understand the reasoning behind the faults occurred during the testing phase, and later to apply the obtained knowledge to a new M1 design to set a defined guideline for future testing campaigns

Enabling planetary science across light-years. Ariel Definition Study Report

Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, was adopted as the fourth medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme to be launched in 2029. During its 4-year mission, Ariel will study what exoplanets are made of, how they formed and how they evolve, by surveying a diverse sample of about 1000 extrasolar planets, simultaneously in visible and infrared wavelengths. It is the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and thermal structures of hundreds of transiting exoplanets, enabling planetary science far beyond the boundaries of the Solar System. The payload consists of an off-axis Cassegrain telescope (primary mirror 1100 mm x 730 mm ellipse) and two separate instruments (FGS and AIRS) covering simultaneously 0.5-7.8 micron spectral range. The satellite is best placed into an L2 orbit to maximise the thermal stability and the field of regard. The payload module is passively cooled via a series of V-Groove radiators; the detectors for the AIRS are the only items that require active cooling via an active Ne JT cooler. The Ariel payload is developed by a consortium of more than 50 institutes from 16 ESA countries, which include the UK, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, and a NASA contribution

COMPOSTI 1,3,8-TRIAZASPIRO E LORO USO COME MEDICAMENTI

La presente invenzione si riferisce a composti 1,3,8-triazaspiro, i loro sali farmaceuticamente accettabili e il loro impiego come medicamenti. I composti dell’invenzione presentano una marcata azione nei confronti di patologie derivanti da danno da riperfusione. Specificatamente, l’invenzione fornisce inibitori selettivi della subunità C del complesso della F1/FO- ATP sintasi. Come inibitori selettivi i composti dell’invenzione sono in grado di modulare l’apertura del poro di transizione di permeabilità mitocondriale in cellule e tessuti di mammifero e quindi essere impiegati per il trattamento di tutte le patologie che presentano un danno da riperfusione, quali per esempio patologie cardiache, neurologiche e nefrologiche

Concise synthesis and biological evaluation of 2-Aryl-3-Anilinobenzo[b]thiophene derivatives as potent apoptosis-inducing agents

Many clinically used agents active in cancer chemotherapy exert their activity through the induction of cell death (apoptosis) by targeting microtubules, altering protein function or inhibiting DNA synthesis. The benzo[b]thiophene scaffold holds a pivotal place as a pharmacophore for the development of anticancer agents, and, in addition, this scaffold has many pharmacological activities. We have developed a flexible method for the construction of a new series of 2-aryl-3-(3,4,5-trimethoxyanilino)-6-methoxybenzo[b]thiophenes as potent antiproliferative agents, giving access to a wide range of substitution patterns at the 2-position of the 6-methoxybenzo[b]thiophene common intermediate. In the present study, all the synthesized compounds retained the 3-(3,4,5-trimethoxyanilino)-6-methoxybenzo[b]thiophene moiety, and the structure-activity relationship was examined by modification of the aryl group at its 2-position with electron-withdrawing (F) or electron-releasing (alkyl and alkoxy) groups. We found that small substituents, such as fluorine or methyl, could be placed in the para-position of the 2-phenyl ring, and these modifications only slightly reduced antiproliferative activity relative to the unsubstituted 2-phenyl analogue. Compounds 3a and 3b, bearing the phenyl and para-fluorophenyl at the 2-position of the 6-methoxybenzo[b]thiophene nucleus, respectively, exhibited the greatest antiproliferative activity among the tested compounds. The treatment of both Caco2 (not metastatic) and HCT-116 (metastatic) colon carcinoma cells with 3a or 3b triggered a significant induction of apoptosis as demonstrated by the increased expression of cleaved-poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), receptor-interacting protein (RIP) and caspase-3 proteins. The same effect was not observed with non-transformed colon 841 CoN cells. A potential additional effect during mitosis for 3a in metastatic cells and for 3b in non-metastatic cells was also observe

C subunit of F1/FO-ATP synthase as target for preventing the detrimental effect of myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury

Objective: The pathophysiological effects of coronary heart diseases are imputable to the hurtful consequences of ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI). The opening of a large pore in the mitochondrial membrane, namely, the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP), is widely recognized as the final step of IRI and is responsible for mitochondrial and cardiomyocyte death. We provided evidences that c subunit of the F1/FO-ATP synthase (FFAS) owns a pivotal role in mPTP formation and activity and thus we sought to test a new mPTP opening inhibitor directed against the c subunit, namely IB13, for the treatment of IRI in ex-vivo model of myocardial infarction