Spacecraft ram glow and surface temperature

Space shuttle glow intensity measurements show large differences when the data from different missions are compared. In particular, on the 41-G mission the space shuttle ram glow was observed to display an unusually low intensity. Subsequent investigation of this measurement and earlier measurements suggest that there was a significant difference in temperature of the glow producing ram surfaces. The highly insulating properties coupled with the high emissivity of the shuttle tile results in surfaces that cool quickly when exposed to deep space on the night side of the orbit. The increased glow intensity is consistent with the hypothesis that the glow is emitted from excited NO2. The excited NO2 is likely formed through three body recombination (OI + NO + M = NO2*) where ramming of OI interacts with weakly surface bound NO. The NO is formed from atmospheric OI and NI which is scavenged by the spacecraft moving through the atmosphere. It is postulated that the colder surfaces retain a thicker layer of NO thereby increasing the probability of the reaction. It has been found from the glow intensity/temperature data that the bond energy of the surface bound precursor, leading to the chemical recombination producing the glow, is approximately 0.14 eV. A thermal analysis of material samples of STS-8 was made and the postulated temperature change of individual material samples prior to the time of glow measurements above respective samples are consistent with the thermal effect on glow found for the orbiter surface

Open-Ended Modeling Group Projects in Introductory Statics and Dynamics Courses

Traditionally, the types of problems that students see in their introductory statics and dynamics courses are well-structured textbook problems with a single solution [1]. These types of questions are often seen by students as being somewhat at-odds with the more “realistic” challenges that they may face in their design or lab courses. Additionally, in the pandemic-necessitated paradigm of emergency online instruction, methods of assessment beyond traditional exams have become more emphasized, both as a way of keeping students engaged by giving the material relevance and of ensuring that the work that they present is their own when so many solutions are available online

Deficits in Beam-Walking After Neonatal Motor Cortical Lesions are not Spared by Fetal Cortical Transplants in Rats

Adult rats that sustained unilateral motor cortical lesions at birth demonstrated deficits in traversing an elevated narrow beam. These deficits, manifested by hindlimb slips off the edge of the beam, were not spared in animals that received fetal cortical transplants into the lesion cavity immediately after lesion placement

Phosphorus Concentrations Into A Subtropical Lake Strongly Influence Nitrogen Accumulation, Nitrogen Export, And Chl A Concentrations

We measured water quality monthly for 22 years in water entering, within, and exiting a 65 km(2) shallow polymictic and eutrophic freshwater lake in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Fertilizer use in the watershed is the dominate source of phosphorous (P) going into the lake and controls the lake\u27s P concentrations, but nitrogen (N) fertilizer use was not related to total nitrogen concentration in the lake. Half of the particulate P entering the lake is trapped within it and there is a net accumulation of N that appears to be from the stimulation of nitrogen fixation. The lake\u27s concentration of Chlorophyll a (mu g Chl a l(-1)) and increase in N in the lake was directly related to the concentration of P in water entering the lake. Variations in the Chl a concentration within a freshwater lake downstream are also directly related to the annual use of P fertilizer, but not to N fertilizer use. Reducing agriculture-sourced P runoff will lower (but not eliminate) both the frequency of algal blooms within Lac des Allemands and the amount of N delivered to the estuary

Electron Density and Electron Neutral Collision Frequency in the Ionosphere Using Plasma Impedance Probe Measurement

Swept Impedance Probe measurements in a sporadic E layer observed during the Sudden Atomic Layer (SAL) sounding rocket mission are analyzed to obtain absolute electron densities and electron neutral collision frequencies accurately. Three sets of upleg and downleg impedance data are selected for the analysis. Initial estimates of the plasma parameters are obtained through a least mean square fit of the measured impedance data against the analytical impedance formula ZB(f ) of Balmain (1969). These initial parameters are used as a starting point to drive a finite difference computational model of an antenna immersed in a plasma called PF-FDTD. The parameters are then tuned until a close fit is obtained between the measured impedance data and the numerical impedance data calculated by the PF-FDTD simulation. The electron densities obtained from the simulation were close to those obtained from the IRI 2001 model. The electron neutral collision frequencies obtained from the more accurate PF-FDTD simulation were up to 20% lower than the values predicted by Balmain’s formula. The obtained collision frequencies are also lower than the quiet time values predicted by Schunk and Nagy (2000) when used in conjunction with neutral densities and electron temperature from the Mass Spectrometer Incoherent Scatter Radar Extended-90 model

Hurricane Signals In Salt Marsh Sediments: Inorganic Sources And Soil Volume

The inorganic content of 51 dated sediment cores from Mississippi River deltaic plain salt marsh wetlands peaks with the landfall of hurricanes. Variations in the inorganic sediment content demonstrate no temporal coherence with changes in either the Mississippi River suspended matter concentration or discharge, or with wetland losses on this coast. The inorganic matter brought to wetlands during hurricanes is sufficient to account for the accumulated inorganic sediment, and the volume averages 9% of the soil volume. A sediment deficit\u27\u27 hypothesis, which makes a causal connection between a changing inorganic supply and the dramatically high wetland losses on this coast, is therefore rejected. Our results support the hypothesis that wetlands of an undeveloped coast receive the majority of their inorganic sediments from offshore and not from overbank flooding or through crevasses. Restoration and wetland maintenance (prevention) goals should be implemented with this in mind: the coastal wetland losses of the last century along this coast appear to be a consequence of the diminished accumulation of organic matter and not from variations in inorganic sediment loading

Interaction of intermediate energy protons with light nuclei

Interaction of intermediate energy protons with light nucle

A versatile and compact capacitive dilatometer

We describe the design, construction, calibration, and operation of a relatively simple differential capacitive dilatometer suitable for measurements of thermal expansion and magnetostriction from 300 K to below 1 K with a low-temperature resolution of about 0.05 angstroms. The design is characterized by an open architecture permitting measurements on small samples with a variety of shapes. Dilatometers of this design have operated successfully with a commercial physical property measurement system, with several types of cryogenic refrigeration systems, in vacuum, in helium exchange gas, and while immersed in liquid helium (magnetostriction only) to temperatures of 30 mK and in magnetic fields to 45 T.Comment: 8 pages, incorporating 6 figures, submitted to Rev. Sci. Instru

Status of SuperSpec: A Broadband, On-Chip Millimeter-Wave Spectrometer

SuperSpec is a novel on-chip spectrometer we are developing for multi-object, moderate resolution (R = 100 - 500), large bandwidth (~1.65:1) submillimeter and millimeter survey spectroscopy of high-redshift galaxies. The spectrometer employs a filter bank architecture, and consists of a series of half-wave resonators formed by lithographically-patterned superconducting transmission lines. The signal power admitted by each resonator is detected by a lumped element titanium nitride (TiN) kinetic inductance detector (KID) operating at 100-200 MHz. We have tested a new prototype device that is more sensitive than previous devices, and easier to fabricate. We present a characterization of a representative R=282 channel at f = 236 GHz, including measurements of the spectrometer detection efficiency, the detector responsivity over a large range of optical loading, and the full system optical efficiency. We outline future improvements to the current system that we expect will enable construction of a photon-noise-limited R=100 filter bank, appropriate for a line intensity mapping experiment targeting the [CII] 158 micron transition during the Epoch of ReionizationComment: 16 pages, 10 figures, Proceedings of the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2014 Conference, Vol 9153, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy VI