Microstrip antenna array for the onboard radio system of small spacecraft

The article presents the results of the development of a directional microstrip antenna array with small mass-dimensional characteristics as a directional antenna of the transmitting channel of a small spacecraft.     

On the front-end design of mid-frequency aperture array for square kilometre array

Complementary to the conventional dish radio telescopes, aperture arrays provide a technically attractive approach to achieve a large field of view and flexibility in observational parameters e.g. Sky area vs. bandwidth. Designs of both aperture array elements and overall geometry for the SKA Mid Frequency Aperture Array are presented here, together with resulting trade-offs. The paper reports the latest developments of global efforts on the front-end design of Mid-Frequency Aperture Array, not attempting to make technology selections, as the priority of sciences and the time for implementing Mid-Frequency Aperture Array is yet to be fully confirmed. Different on-going front-end solutions are introduced, particularly crossed ring antenna array with a planar structure is explored in more detail as it is less known in the community. Key performances of the candidate front-end technologies are addressed by examining the prototypes. The objective of the collaborative study is to increase technology readiness for implementation of Mid-Frequency Aperture Array in the future.     

Solar dynamics imaging system a back-end instrument for the proposed NLST

The Solar Dynamics Imaging System (SDIS) will be one of the focal plane instruments operated at the National Large Solar Telescope (NLST). The prime objective of the instrument is to obtain high spatial and temporal resolution images of the region of interest on the Sun in the wavelength range from 390 nm to 900 nm. The SDIS provides filtergrams using broad-band filters while preserving the Strehl ratio provided by the telescope. Furthermore, the SDIS is expected to provide observations that allow image reconstruction to extract wave front information and achieve a homogenous image quality over the entire FOV.     

Conceptual design studies of the 5 m terahertz antenna for Dome A,Antarctica

As the highest, coldest and driest place in Antarctica, Dome A provides exceptionally good observing conditions for ground-based observations over terahertz wavebands. The 5 m Dome A Terahertz Explorer （DATES） has been proposed to explore new terahertz windows, primarily over wavelengths between 350 and 200 pm. DATE5 will be an open-air, fully-steerable telescope that can function by unmanned operation with remote control. The telescope will be able to endure the harsh polar environment, including high altitude, very low temperature and very low air pressure. The unique specifications, including high accuracies for surface shape and pointing and fully automatic year-around remote operation, along with a stringent limit on the periods of on-site assembly, testing and maintenance, bring a number of challenges to the design, construction, assembly and operation of this telescope. This paper intro- duces general concepts related to the design of the DATE5 antenna. Beginning from an overview of the environmental and operational limitations, the design specifications and requirements of the DATE5 antenna are listed. From these, major aspects on the conceptual design studies, including the antenna optics, the backup structure, the pan- els, the subreflector, the mounting and the antenna base structure, are explained. Some critical issues of performance are justified through analyses that use computational fluid dynamics, thermal analysis and de-icing studies, and the proposed approaches for test operation and on-site assembly. Based on these studies, we conclude that the specifications of the DATE5 antenna can generally be met by using enhanced technological approaches.     

Numerical simulations of granular dynamics: I. Hard-sphere discrete element method and tests

We present a new particle-based (discrete element) numerical method for the simulation of granular dynamics, with application to motions of particles on small solar system body and planetary surfaces. The method employs the parallel N-body tree code pkdgrav to search for collisions and compute particle trajectories. Collisions are treated as instantaneous point-contact events between rigid spheres. Particle confinement is achieved by combining arbitrary combinations of four provided wall primitives, namely infinite plane, finite disk, infinite cylinder, and finite cylinder, and degenerate cases of these. Various wall movements, including translation, oscillation, and rotation, are supported. We provide full derivations of collision prediction and resolution equations for all geometries and motions. Several tests of the method are described, including a model granular “atmosphere” that achieves correct energy equipartition, and a series of tumbler simulations that show the expected transition from tumbling to centrifuging as a function of rotation rate.     

Arome,a balloon-borne instrument for astronomical near-infrared spectrophotometry

We present here the French balloon-borne experiment named AROME. This astronomical instrument is specifically designed for the detection of near infrared emission bands (=3–12m) from extended sources of low surface brightness with an angular resolution of 0.5°. The rms sensitivity achieved is of the order of 10^-8 Wm^-2sr^-1, in terms of the power radiated in the 3.3m band. We recall that this program led to the first detection of the 3.3m feature in the spectrum of the diffuse galactic emission. The scientific results were presented and interpreted in Paper I, Giard et al., 1989. Future work will include both the observation of fainter objects at 3.3m and the detection of other emission bands at 6.2 and 11.3m.     

AC magnetic field measurements onboard Cross-Scale: Scientific objectives and instrument design

The ACB search-coil magnetometer for Cross-Scale will measure three components of the AC magnetic field up to 4 kHz, and one component up to 100 kHz. Turbulent and coherent magnetic field fluctuations in that frequency range play an important role in the acceleration, scattering, and thermalisation of particles. ACB will, together with the other instruments of the Cross-Scale wave consortium, allow to address the key science objectives associated with plasma waves. Here, we list some of the important issues, based on the experience drawn from Cluster, and describe the instrument.     

Requirements for the appearance and basic design parameters of a micro-rocket system meant for launching nano-, pico,and femtoscale spacecraft

The paper proposes a concept of a microrocket system meant for the injection of nano-, pico-, and femtoscale satellites into near-Earth orbit. Requirements for the appearance and basic design parameters of the micro-rocket system are substantiated. Characteristics of possible prototypes and analogues of this system are analyzed.     

Cometary organic chemistry: a review from observations,numerical and experimental simulations

This paper is a review dealing with the organic chemistry of comets. It describes how the chemical composition of comets can provide information about the chemistry of the interstellar medium, and the formation of the solar system. We discuss to what extent they could have brought to Earth the ingredients essential to the emergence of life: water and prebiotic compounds. We review all molecules which have been detected or tentatively detected in comets by remote sensing or in-situ observations, inputs of theoretical models, and all other organic species expected to be present from the results of experimental simulations. This compilation yields a list of more than a hundred molecules which can be used as a reference for the preparation of experiments developed for the Rosetta and Deep Space 4 cometary missions. We point out that further experiments are necessary to investigate the connections between the solid and gaseous phases of comets, especially studying the photodegradation of high molecular weight compounds which could be present in the nuclei.     

The design and implementation of a ROACH2+GPU based correlator on the Tianlai dish array

A digital correlator is a crucial element in a modern radio telescope. In this paper, we describe a scalable design for the correlator system of the Tianlai pathfinder array, which is an experiment dedicated to testing key technologies for conducting a 21 cm intensity mapping survey. The correlator implements the FX design, which firstly performs a fast Fourier transform(FFT) including polyphase filter bank(PFB) computation using a Collaboration for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research(CASPER) Reconfigurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware-2(ROACH2) board, then computes cross-correlations by employing Graphics Processing Units(GPUs). The design has been tested both in laboratory and in actual observation.     

Bubbles, feedback and the intracluster medium: three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations

We use a three-dimensional hydrodynamical code to simulate the effect of energy injection on cooling flows in the intracluster medium. Specifically, we compare a simulation of a 10¹⁵-M_⊙ cluster with radiative cooling only with a second simulation in which thermal energy is injected 31 kpc off-centre, over 64 kpc³ at a rate of     for 50 Myr. The heat injection forms a hot, low-density bubble which quickly rises, dragging behind it material from the cluster core. The rising bubble pushes with it a shell of gas which expands and cools. We find the appearance of the bubble in X-ray temperature and luminosity to be in good qualitative agreement with recent Chandra observations of cluster cores. Toward the end of the simulation, at 600 Myr, the displaced gas begins to fall back toward the core, and the subsequent turbulence is very efficient at mixing the low- and high-entropy gas. The result is that the cooling flow is disrupted for up to ∼ 50 Myr after the injection of energy ceases. Thus this mechanism provides a very efficient method for regulating cooling flows, if the injection events occur with a 1:1 duty cycle.     

Design of the cryogenic system of the wideband phased array feed for QTT

Phased array feeds(PAFs),which illuminate the dish with digitally synthesized beams instead of separated horns,provide the capability for wider and continuous field-of-view surveys.As a promising technology for next generation radio telescopes,PAFs will provide the Qi Tai Telescope(QTT),which will be next world-class fully steerable radio telescope,an opportunity of reaching several cutting-edge science goals.This paper presents a brief introduction of the wideband PAF for QTT,and the detailed design and simulation of the cryogenic system.Based on this design,a scaled prototype of the spherical vacuum window,which is the key part of the cryogenic system,has been built and the performance is verified.     

Two- and three-dimensional numerical simulations of accretion discs in a close binary system

We perform 2D and 3D numerical simulations of an accretion disc in a close binary system using the simplified flux vector splitting (SFS) finite volume method. In our calculations, the gas is assumed to be ideal with γ =1.01, 1.05, 1.1 and 1.2 . The mass ratio of the mass-losing star to the mass-accreting star is unity. Our results show that spiral shocks are formed on the accretion disc in all cases. In 2D calculations we find that the smaller γ is, the more tightly the spiral winds. We observe this trend in 3D calculations as well in a somewhat weaker sense. Mach numbers in our discs are less than 10. These values are lower than the values in observed accretion discs in close binary systems.
Recently, Steeghs, Harlaftis & Horne found the first convincing evidence for spiral structure in the accretion disc of the eclipsing dwarf nova binary IP Pegasi, using the technique known as Doppler tomography. Although the Mach numbers in present calculations are rather low, we may claim that the spiral structure that we discovered in earlier numerical simulations is now found observationally.