Long-Range Planning Cost Model for Support of Future Space Missions by the Deep Space Network

A simple model is suggested to do long-range planning cost estimates for Deep Space Network (DSP) support of future space missions. The model estimates total DSN preparation costs and the annual distribution of these costs for long-range budgetary planning. The cost model is based on actual DSN preparation costs from four space missions: Galileo, Voyager (Uranus), Voyager (Neptune), and Magellan. The model was tested against the four projects and gave cost estimates that range from 18 percent above the actual total preparation costs of the projects to 25 percent below. The model was also compared to two other independent projects: Viking and Mariner Jupiter/Saturn (MJS later became Voyager). The model gave cost estimates that range from 2 percent (for Viking) to 10 percent (for MJS) below the actual total preparation costs of these missions

Preliminary thermal and thermomechanical modeling for the Near Surface Test Facility heater experiments at Hanford

Preliminary thermal and thermomechanical analyses have been carried out for the heater experiments in the Near Surface Test Facility at Gable Mountain on the Hanford Reservation, Richland, Washington. Temperatures were calculated by Green's function method for the full-scale and time-scaled experiments. Six different heater power schedules were considered for the full-scale experiments to bracket all possible values of initial spent fuel power from canisters buried after different periods of cooling. Linear elastic finite-element models were used to calculate the thermally induced displacements and stresses for two of the power schedules. Due to the poor thermal conductivity and rather high Young's modulus of Pomona basalt (the rock type in which the heater experiments are to be conducted), very high temperatures, displacements and stresses were predicted in spite of the relatively low thermal expansion coefficient. These predicted values have been used for the design of the experiments. Recommendations are made in this report regarding the conduct of the experiments and the interpretation of the field data, as well as further thermomechanical modeling and input data required for more meaningful modeling of a fractured rock mass. Equations are given in Appendices A and B for temperatures caused by an arbitrary time-dependent cylindrical heater of finite length and radius, a finite-radius disc heater, as well as the generalization to the situation of an anisotropic medium

PRELIMINARY THERMAL AND THERMOMECH-ANICAL MODELING FOR THE NEAR SURFACE TEST FACILITY HEATER EXPERIMANTS AT HANFORD: Appendix D

Appendix D is a complete set of figures illustrating the detailed calculations necessary for designing the heater experiments at the Near Surface Test Facility (NSTF) at Hanford, Washington. The discussion of the thermal and thermomechanical modeling that yielded these calculations is presented in Volume 1. A summary of the figures and the models they illustrate is given in Table D1. The most important figures have also been included in the discussion in Volume 1, and Table D2 lists the figure numbers in this volume that correspond to figure numbers used there

Certifications Offered by Cost Estimating Organizations

There has been an increasing trend in professional and engineering circles to place greater emphasis on official credentials. These credentials commonly come in the form of certificates – documented recognition by a professional body that an engineer or other professional has the qualifications and technical knowledge to be a practitioner in that field. These certificates are somewhat analogous to merit badges in scouting – the certification is evidence that the holder has a certain minimum level of competence in the subject area. This review will help you decide what certifications are applicable to you and the requirements to obtain a certification

High (but Not Low) Urinary Iodine Excretion Is Predicted by Iodine Excretion Levels from Five Years Ago

Background: It has not been investigated whether there are associations between urinary iodine (UI) excretion measurements some years apart, nor whether such an association remains after adjustment for nutritional habits. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relation between iodine-creatinine ratio (ICR) at two measuring points 5 years apart. Methods: Data from 2,659 individuals from the Study of Health in Pomerania were analyzed. Analysis of covariance and Poisson regressions were used to associate baseline with follow-up ICR. Results: Baseline ICR was associated with follow-up ICR. Particularly, baseline ICR >300 mu g/g was related to an ICR >300 mu g/g at follow-up (relative risk, RR: 2.20; p < 0.001). The association was stronger in males (RR: 2.64; p < 0.001) than in females (RR: 1.64; p = 0.007). In contrast, baseline ICR <100 mu g/g was only associated with an ICR <100 mu g/g at follow-up in males when considering unadjusted ICR. Conclusions: We detected only a weak correlation with respect to low ICR. Studies assessing iodine status in a population should take into account that an individual with a low UI excretion in one measurement is not necessarily permanently iodine deficient. On the other hand, current high ICR could have been predicted by high ICR 5 years ago. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Base

Corrections for component imperfections and azimuth errors in an automatic self-compensating ellipsometer

An analysis of the first-order effects of component imperfections and azimuth errors in an automatic, self-compensating ellipsometer is presented. Twenty-three parameters in a linearized theory are used to compute the ellipsometer parameters ..delta.. and psi from polarizer, quarter wave compensator, and analyzer azimuths. These parameters are evaluated using 56 experimental measurements. The effectiveness of the corrections is recognized by a substantial decrease of the differences between 4-zone measurements. The theoretical dependence of the magnitude of errors on the orientation of the polarizer, analyzer, and quarter wave plate was experimentally verified

Water inflow into boreholes during the Stripa heater experiments

During the operation of three in-situ heater experiments at Stripa, Sweden, groundwater flowed into many of the instrumentation and heater boreholes. These flows were recovered and measured routinely. The records of water inflow indicate two origins: inflow attributed to local hydrological pressure gradients, and water migration from cracks closing under the rapidly increasing, thermal-induced stress changes. The latter component appeared as a main pulse that occurred when the heaters were turned on, and lasted about 30 to 40 days, steadily declining over the next several months, and decreasing sharply when heater power was decreased or stopped. The magnitude of the total inflow per hole ranged over more than five decades, from 0.1 to over 10,000 liters over the 500 to 600 day time periods. When plotted against the logarithm of total volume, the frequency distribution displays a normal curve dependence with a mean of approximately 10 liters. Of this amount, 1 to 2 liters of flow into 38-mm-diam boreholes accompanied an increase in applied heat load. These amounts are compatible with rock porosities of a fraction of one percent. Inflow into the 3.6 and 5.0 kW heater holes peaked within 3 to 6 days after heater turn on, then declined to zero inflow, with no further inflow measured for the remainder of the experiments. In the heater holes of the time-scaled experiment, which operated at 1.125 kW or less, the initial pulse of inflow took much longer to decay, and 7 of 8 heater holes continued to flow throughout the experiment. The packing off and isolation of a borehole some 40 m distant in the ventilation drift dramatically increased the inflow into the heater holes in one of the three heater experiments. This demonstrated the existence of permeable flow paths among a number of boreholes. The records of water inflow demonstrate the need for a thorough understanding of the nature of fluid flow and storage in fractured crystalline rock

MODIS 3 Km Aerosol Product: Applications over Land in an Urban/suburban Region

MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites have provided a rich dataset of aerosol information at a 10 km spatial scale. Although originally intended for climate applications, the air quality community quickly became interested in using the MODIS aerosol data. However, 10 km resolution is not sufficient to resolve local scale aerosol features. With this in mind, MODIS Collection 6 is including a global aerosol product with a 3 km resolution. Here, we evaluate the 3 km product over the Baltimore/Washington D.C., USA, corridor during the summer of 2011, by comparing with spatially dense data collected as part of the DISCOVER-AQ campaign these data were measured by the NASA Langley Research Center airborne High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) and a network of 44 sun photometers (SP) spaced approximately 10 km apart. The HSRL instrument shows that AOD can vary by up to 0.2 within a single 10 km MODIS pixel, meaning that higher resolution satellite retrievals may help to characterize aerosol spatial distributions in this region. Different techniques for validating a high-resolution aerosol product against SP measurements are considered. Although the 10 km product is more statistically reliable than the 3 km product, the 3 km product still performs acceptably, with more than two-thirds of MODIS/SP collocations falling within the expected error envelope with high correlation (R > 0.90). The 3 km product can better resolve aerosol gradients and retrieve closer to clouds and shorelines than the 10 km product, but tends to show more significant noise especially in urban areas. This urban degradation is quantified using ancillary land cover data. Overall, we show that the MODIS 3 km product adds new information to the existing set of satellite derived aerosol products and validates well over the region, but due to noise and problems in urban areas, should be treated with some degree of caution

A Theoretical Model for Gas Separation in a Glow Discharge: Cataphoresis

A theoretical model for transient and steady-state cataphoresis is developed starting with the macroscopic equations of continuity. After a brief breakdown period, the impurity ions are assumed to be closely coupled with their neutral counterparts. The basic assumptions in the model are that after breakdown, the level of ionization of the impurity, and the axial electric field remain constant; it is demonstrated that under these conditions a system involving rapid ionization-recombination reactions is equivalent to a system in which no reaction occurs, but in which the effective\u27\u27 ion mobility is a product of the true ion mobility and the fraction of impurity ionization. The influence of endbulbs commonly employed in experiments is analyzed and found to influence greatly the characteristic time required to reach steady state. Agreement is found between the model and available experimental data. Particular emphasis is placed upon mass spectrometer data reported by Matveeva, and by Beckey, Groth, and Welge; these data are for mixtures of rare gases and for mixtures of hydrogen and deuterium, and involve endbulbs. The ordinary diffusion case, associated with the collapse of the steady-state cataphoretic profile, is also analyzed for a system containing endbulbs

A detailed characterization of the Saharan dust collected during the Fennec campaign in 2011: in situ ground-based and laboratory measurements

Millions of tons of mineral dust are lifted by the wind from arid surfaces and transported around the globe every year. The physical and chemical properties of the mineral dust are needed to better constrain remote sensing observations and are of fundamental importance for the understanding of dust atmospheric processes. Ground-based in situ measurements and in situ filter collection of Saharan dust were obtained during the Fennec campaign in the central Sahara in 2011. This paper presents results of the absorption and scattering coefficients, and hence single scattering albedo (SSA), of the Saharan dust measured in real time during the last period of the campaign and subsequent laboratory analysis of the dust samples collected in two supersites, SS1 and SS2, in Algeria and in Mauritania, respectively. The samples were taken to the laboratory, where their size and aspect ratio distributions, mean chemical composition, spectral mass absorption efficiency, and spectral imaginary refractive index were obtained from the ultraviolet (UV) to the near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. At SS1 in Algeria, the time series of the scattering coefficients during the period of the campaign show dust events exceeding 3500 Mm−1, and a relatively high mean SSA of 0.995 at 670 nm was observed at this site. The laboratory results show for the fine particle size distributions (particles diameter  < 5µm and mode diameter at 2–3 µm) in both sites a spectral dependence of the imaginary part of the refractive index Im(m) with a bow-like shape, with increased absorption in UV as well as in the shortwave infrared. The same signature was not observed, however, in the mixed particle size distribution (particle diameter  < 10 µm and mode diameter at 4 µm) in Algeria. Im(m) was found to range from 0.011 to 0.001i for dust collected in Algeria and 0.008 to 0.002i for dust collected in Mauritania over the wavelength range of 350–2500 nm. Differences in the mean elemental composition of the dust collected in the supersites in Algeria and in Mauritania and between fine and mixed particle size distributions were observed from EDXRF measurements, although those differences cannot be used to explain the optical properties variability between the samples. Finally, particles with low-density typically larger than 10 µm in diameter were found in some of the samples collected at the supersite in Mauritania, but these low-density particles were not observed in Algeria