Signal analysis and error analysis studies for a Geopotential Research Mission (GRM)

The signal characteristics and the geopotential parameter recovery capability of the SST Doppler sensor flown on the geopotential research mission (GRM) are discussed. Simulation studies of the velocity profiles resulting from the perturbation produced by a 1 deg/w/1 deg, 1 mgal anomaly as sensed by two GRM spacecraft orbiting altitudes of 160 km and 200 km respectively are described. It was found that the amplitude of the gravity signal drops off by a factor of 1.5 when going from an altitude of 160 km to 200 km. By extrapolation the signal amplitude is further decreased by a factor of 3 when the orbital altitude is increased to 250 km. Thus the amplitude of the measurement drops off as the altitude is increased to the point where it is insignificant at the 1 mgal level for altitudes above 200 km. Spectral analysis results show that for a GRM mission altitude of 160 km and a system precision of 1 micrometer/sec, gravity field information can be sensed up to 230 cycles per orbital revolution - beyond that frequency the gravity signal is characterized by white noise. It follows that at the GRM mission altitude of 160 km and a satellite to satellite Doppler system precision of 1 micrometer per second, 1/1 deg gravity and geoid anomalies can be determined to an accuracy of 3.4 mgals and 8.6 cm respectively

Ocean gravity and geoid determination

Gravity anomalies have been recovered in the North Atlantic and the Indian Ocean regions. Comparisons of 63 2 deg x 2 deg mean free air gravity anomalies recovered in the North Atlantic area and 24 5 deg x 5 deg mean free air gravity anomalies in the Indian Ocean area with surface gravimetric measurements have shown agreement to + or - 8 mgals for both solutions. Geoids derived from the altimeter solutions are consistent with altimetric sea surface height data to within the precision of the data, about + or - 2 meters

The airborne laser ranging system, its capabilities and applications

The airborne laser ranging system is a multibeam short pulse laser ranging system on board an aircraft. It simultaneously measures the distances between the aircraft and six laser retroreflectors (targets) deployed on the Earth's surface. The system can interrogate over 100 targets distributed over an area of 25,000 sq, kilometers in a matter of hours. Potentially, a total of 1.3 million individual range measurements can be made in a six hour flight. The precision of these range measurements is approximately + or - 1 cm. These measurements are used in procedure which is basically an extension of trilateration techniques to derive the intersite vector between the laser ground targets. By repeating the estimation of the intersite vector, strain and strain rate errors can be estimated. These quantities are essential for crustal dynamic studies which include determination and monitoring of regional strain in the vicinity of active fault zones, land subsidence, and edifice building preceding volcanic eruptions

Gravity anomaly detection: Apollo/Soyuz

The Goddard Apollo-Soyuz Geodynamics Experiment is described. It was performed to demonstrate the feasibility of tracking and recovering high frequency components of the earth's gravity field by utilizing a synchronous orbiting tracking station such as ATS-6. Gravity anomalies of 5 MGLS or larger having wavelengths of 300 to 1000 kilometers on the earth's surface are important for geologic studies of the upper layers of the earth's crust. Short wavelength Earth's gravity anomalies were detected from space. Two prime areas of data collection were selected for the experiment: (1) the center of the African continent and (2) the Indian Ocean Depression centered at 5% north latitude and 75% east longitude. Preliminary results show that the detectability objective of the experiment was met in both areas as well as at several additional anomalous areas around the globe. Gravity anomalies of the Karakoram and Himalayan mountain ranges, ocean trenches, as well as the Diamantina Depth, can be seen. Maps outlining the anomalies discovered are shown

Performance Analysis of the Spaceborne Laser Ranging System

The 'spaceborne laser ranging system' is a proposed short pulse laser on board an orbiting spacecraft. It measures the distances between the spacecraft and many laser retroreflectors (targets) deployed on the earth's surface. The precision of these range measurements was assumed to be about plus or minus 2 cm. These measurements were then used together with the orbital dynamics of the spacecraft to derive the intersite vector between the laser ground targets. The errors associated with this vector were on the order of 1 to 2 cm. The baseline distances determined range from 25 km to 1200 km. By repeating the measurements of the intersite vector, strain and strain rate errors were estimated. The realizable precision for intersite distance determination was estimated to be on the order of 0.5 cm at 300 km and about 1.5 cm at 1200 km. The corresponding inaccuracies for the intersite distances were larger, than is 1 cm and 3.5 cm respectively. The corresponding precision in the vertical direction was 1 cm and 3 cm

Altitude Test Chamber Investigation of Performance of a 28-inch Ram-jet Engine II : Effects of Gutter Width and Blocked Area on Operating Range and Combustion Efficiency

Altitude-test-chamber investigation of effects of flame-holder blocked area and gutter width on performance of 28-inch diameter ram jet at simulated flight Mach number of 2.0 for altitudes from 40,000 to 55,000 feet was conducted at NACA Lewis laboratory. Ten flame holders investigated covered gutter widths from 1.00 to 2.50 inches and blocked areas from 40.5 to 62.0 percent of combustion-chamber area. Gutter width did not appreciably affect combustion efficiency. Increase in blocked area from 40 to 62 percent resulted in 5- to 10-percent increase in combustion efficiency. Increasing gutter width resulted in improvement in fuel-air-ratio operating range

Geopotential research mission, science, engineering and program summary

This report is based upon the accumulated scientific and engineering studies pertaining to the Geopotential Research Mission (GRM). The scientific need and justification for the measurement of the Earth's gravity and magnetic fields are discussed. Emphasis is placed upon the studies and conclusions of scientific organizations and NASA advisory groups. The engineering design and investigations performed over the last 4 years are described, and a spacecraft design capable of fulfilling all scientific objectives is presented. In addition, critical features of the scientific requirements and state-of-the-art limitations of spacecraft design, mission flight performance, and data processing are discussed

Reversible writing of high-mobility and high-carrier-density doping patterns in two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures

A key feature of two-dimensional materials is that the sign and concentration of their carriers can be externally controlled with techniques such as electrostatic gating. However, conventional electrostatic gating has limitations, including a maximum carrier density set by the dielectric breakdown, and ionic liquid gating and direct chemical doping also suffer from drawbacks. Here, we show that an electron-beam-induced doping technique can be used to reversibly write high-resolution doping patterns in hexagonal boron nitride-encapsulated graphene and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) van der Waals heterostructures. The doped MoS2 device exhibits an order of magnitude decrease of subthreshold swing compared with the device before doping, whereas the doped graphene devices demonstrate a previously inaccessible regime of high carrier concentration and high mobility, even at room temperature. We also show that the approach can be used to write high-quality p–n junctions and nanoscale doping patterns, illustrating that the technique can create nanoscale circuitry in van der Waals heterostructures

Chaotic motion of space charge wavefronts in semiconductors under time-independent voltage bias

A standard drift-diffusion model of space charge wave propagation in semiconductors has been studied numerically and analytically under dc voltage bias. For sufficiently long samples, appropriate contact resistivity and applied voltage - such that the sample is biased in a regime of negative differential resistance - we find chaos in the propagation of nonlinear fronts (charge monopoles of alternating sign) of electric field. The chaos is always low-dimensional, but has a complex spatial structure; this behavior can be interpreted using a finite dimensional asymptotic model in which the front (charge monopole) positions and the electrical current are the only dynamical variables.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure

Radiative Shock-Induced Collapse of Intergalactic Clouds

Accumulating observational evidence for a number of radio galaxies suggests an association between their jets and regions of active star formation. The standard picture is that shocks generated by the jet propagate through an inhomogeneous medium and trigger the collapse of overdense clouds, which then become active star-forming regions. In this contribution, we report on recent hydrodynamic simulations of radiative shock-cloud interactions using two different cooling models: an equilibrium cooling-curve model assuming solar metallicities and a non-equilibrium chemistry model appropriate for primordial gas clouds. We consider a range of initial cloud densities and shock speeds in order to quantify the role of cooling in the evolution. Our results indicate that for moderate cloud densities (>1 cm^{-3}) and shock Mach numbers (<20), cooling processes can be highly efficient and result in more than 50% of the initial cloud mass cooling to below 100 K. We also use our results to estimate the final H_2 mass fraction for the simulations that use the non-equilibrium chemistry package. This is an important measurement, since H_2 is the dominant coolant for a primordial gas cloud. We find peak H_2 mass fractions of >0.01 and total H_2 mass fractions of >10^{-5} for the cloud gas. Finally, we compare our results with the observations of jet-induced star formation in ``Minkowski's Object.'' We conclude that its morphology, star formation rate (~ 0.3M_solar/yr) and stellar mass (~ 1.2 x 10^7 M_solar) can be explained by the interaction of a 90,000 km/s jet with an ensemble of moderately dense (~ 10 cm^{-3}), warm (10^4 K) intergalactic clouds in the vicinity of its associated radio galaxy at the center of the galaxy cluster.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Astrophysical Journa