The ARIEL mission reference sample

The ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Exoplanet Large-survey) mission concept is one of the three M4 mission candidates selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) for a Phase A study, competing for a launch in 2026. ARIEL has been designed to study the physical and chemical properties of a large and diverse sample of exoplanets and, through those, understand how planets form and evolve in our galaxy. Here we describe the assumptions made to estimate an optimal sample of exoplanets – including already known exoplanets and expected ones yet to be discovered – observable by ARIEL and define a realistic mission scenario. To achieve the mission objectives, the sample should include gaseous and rocky planets with a range of temperatures around stars of different spectral type and metallicity. The current ARIEL design enables the observation of ～1000 planets, covering a broad range of planetary and stellar parameters, during its four year mission lifetime. This nominal list of planets is expected to evolve over the years depending on the new exoplanet discoveries.     

The RHESSI Spacecraft Instrument Data Processing Unit

The Ramaty High-Energy Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) spacecraft is a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) class mission. RHESSI is designed to image solar X-rays and gamma rays with high-energy resolution. The Instrument Data Processing Unit (IDPU) serves as the central RHESSI instrument on-board data-processing element. It controls and monitors the instrument operations, and provides a flexible telemetry collection and formatting system. The system responds autonomously to optimize science data collection over a wide dynamic range of conditions, handling up to 40 Mbps of telemetry during solar flares. This paper presents an overview of the IDPU hardware and software design.     

The Phase A study of the ESA M4 mission candidate ARIEL

ARIEL, the Atmospheric Remote sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large survey, is one of the three M-class mission candidates competing for the M4 launch slot within the Cosmic Vision science programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). As such, ARIEL has been the subject of a Phase A study that involved European industry, research institutes and universities from ESA member states. This study is now completed and the M4 down-selection is expected to be concluded in November 2017. ARIEL is a concept for a dedicated mission to measure the chemical composition and structure of hundreds of exoplanet atmospheres using the technique of transit spectroscopy. ARIEL targets extend from gas giants (Jupiter or Neptune-like) to super-Earths in the very hot to warm zones of F to M-type host stars, opening up the way to large-scale, comparative planetology that would place our own Solar System in the context of other planetary systems in the Milky Way. A technical and programmatic review of the ARIEL mission was performed between February and May 2017, with the objective of assessing the readiness of the mission to progress to the Phase B1 study. No critical issues were identified and the mission was deemed technically feasible within the M4 programmatic boundary conditions. In this paper we give an overview of the final mission concept for ARIEL as of the end of the Phase A study, from scientific, technical and operational perspectives.     

The contribution of the ARIEL space mission to the study of planetary formation

The study of extrasolar planets and of the Solar System provides complementary pieces of the mosaic represented by the process of planetary formation. Exoplanets are essential to fully grasp the huge diversity of outcomes that planetary formation and the subsequent evolution of the planetary systems can produce. The orbital and basic physical data we currently possess for the bulk of the exoplanetary population, however, do not provide enough information to break the intrinsic degeneracy of their histories, as different evolutionary tracks can result in the same final configurations. The lessons learned from the Solar System indicate us that the solution to this problem lies in the information contained in the composition of planets. The goal of the Atmospheric Remote-Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey (ARIEL), one of the three candidates as ESA M4 space mission, is to observe a large and diversified population of transiting planets around a range of host star types to collect information on their atmospheric composition. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres, which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials and thus reveal their bulk composition across all main cosmochemical elements. In this work we will review the most outstanding open questions concerning the way planets form and the mechanisms that contribute to create habitable environments that the compositional information gathered by ARIEL will allow to tackle.     

Transit spectroscopy of temperate Jupiters with ARIEL: a feasibility study

Several temperate Jupiters have been discovered to date, but most of them remain to be detected. In this note, we analyse the expected infrared transmission spectrum of a temperate Jupiter, with an equilibrium temperature ranging between 350 and 500 K. We estimate its expected amplitude signal through a primary transit, and we analyse the best conditions for the host star to be filled in order to optimize the S/N ratio of its transmission spectrum. Calculations show that temperate Jupiters around M stars could have an amplitude signal higher than 10^?4 in primary transits, with revolution periods of a few tens of days and transit durations of a few hours. In order to enlarge the sampling of exoplanets to be observed with ARIEL (presently focussed on objects warmer than 500 K), such objects could be considered as additional possible targets for the mission.     

A laser altimeter for BepiColombo mission: Instrument design and performance model

This paper presents a definition study of a laser altimeter for the topographic exploration of Mercury. The reference scenario is the BepiColombo mission, a cornerstone mission of European Space Agency (ESA) planned for 2012. BepiColombo will offer the chance to make a remarkable new contribution to our knowledge of the Solar System, by venturing into the hot region near the Sun and exploring Mercury, the most enigmatic of the earth's sisters among the terrestrial planets. First images of Mercury surface were acquired by Mariner 10 in 1974 and 1975 offering a coverage and resolution comparable to Earth-based telescopic coverage of the Moon before spaceflight. BepiColombo mission can be very beneficial by using an optical rangefinder for Mercury exploration. In fact starting from the first missions in 1970s until today, laser altimeters have been demonstrating to be particularly appropriate as part of the scientific payload whenever the topography of earth, lunar and planetary surface is the scientific objective of a space mission.Our system design is compliant to Mercury Polar Orbiter (MPO) of the mission. System performance analysis is carried out simulating main hermean topographic features and the potential targets on the planet by means of analytical models and computer codes and several plot are presented to analyse the performance of the instrument.     

The Prototype RISE-PSPT Instrument Operating in Rome

The breadboard prototype of the PSPT (Precision Solar Photometric Telescope), built by NSO at Sacramento Peak, has been operating in Rome since February 1996 to test observing procedures and future network operations. In this paper we briefly describe the kind of preliminary data we are deriving from the first observations concerning the contrast histogram and the fractal analysis of the network cells.     

Design of Instrument Control Software for Solar Vector Magnetograph at Udaipur Solar Observatory

A magnetograph is an instrument which makes measurement of solar magnetic field by measuring Zeeman induced polarization in solar spectral lines. In a typical filter based magnetograph there are three main modules namely, polarimeter, narrow-band spectrometer (filter), and imager(CCD camera). For a successful operation of magnetograph it is essential that these modules work in synchronization with each other. Here, we describe the design of instrument control system implemented for the Solar Vector Magnetograph under development at Udaipur Solar Observatory. The control software is written in Visual Basic and exploits the Component Object Model (COM) components for a fast and flexible application development. The user can interact with the instrument modules through a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and can program the sequence of magnetograph operations. The integration of Interactive Data Language (IDL) ActiveX components in the interface provides a powerful tool for online visualization, analysis and processing of images.     

Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS)—Instrument design and technical details

The UK-built Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) is flying as an ESA instrument on India's Chandrayaan-1 mission to the Moon. The Chandrayaan-1 mission launched on the 22nd October 2008 and entered a 100 km polar lunar orbit on the 12th November 2008. C1XS builds on experience gained with the earlier D-CIXS instrument on SMART-1, but will be a technically much more capable instrument. Here we describe the instrument design.     

The Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM): Instrument Design

The Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) instrument is designed to measure total solar irradiance with an absolute accuracy of 100 parts per million. Four electrical substitution radiometers behind precision apertures measure input radiant power while providing redundancy. Duty cycling the use of the radiometers tracks degradation of the nickel-phosphorous absorptive black radiometer interiors caused by solar exposure. Phase sensitive detection at the shutter frequency reduces noise and simplifies the estimate of the radiometer's equivalence ratio. An as-designed uncertainty budget estimates the instrument's accuracy goal. The TIM measurement equation defines the conversion from measured signal to solar irradiance.     

BATC测光系统的仪器效率测定

对文[2]的4颗流量标准星HD19445、HD84937、BD 17°4708和BD 26°2606中的2颗:HD19445和HD84937所在天区,用BATC15色测光系统中的14色滤光片(除b片外)进行测光。利用批处理程序PipelineI和PipelineⅡ对观测数据进行处理,并利用观测天区中标准星已知的BATC星等来确定天区内的其它恒星的BATC星等。我们估算出天光背景值,并寻找得到的信噪比与BATC星等mbatc以及曝光时间t之间的关系,最后得到三者之间的经验关系公式。     

The Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM): Instrument Calibration

The calibrations of the SORCE Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) are detailed and compared against the designed uncertainty budget. Several primary calibrations were accomplished in the laboratory before launch, including the aperture area, applied radiometer power, and radiometer absorption efficiency. Other parameters are calibrated or tracked on orbit, including the electronic servo system gain, the radiometer sensitivity to background thermal emission, and the degradation of radiometer efficiency. The as-designed uncertainty budget is refined with knowledge from the on-orbit performance.     

The High Resolution Chirp Transform Spectrometer for the Sofia-Great Instrument

In this paper, we present the design of a high resolution Chirp Transform Spectrometer (CTS) which is part of the GREAT (German REceiver for Astronomy at Terahertz frequencies) instrument onboard SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy. The new spectrometer will provide unique spectral resolving power and linearity response, since the analog Fourier transform performed by the CTS spectrometer was improved through a new design, that we call “Adaptive Digital Chirp Processor (ADCP)”. The principle behind the ADCP consists on digitally generating the dispersive signal which adapts to the compressor dispersive properties, achieving maximum spectral resolution and higher dynamic range. Excellent test results have been obtained such as a white noise dynamic range of 30 dB, and a spectral resolution (FWHM) of 41.68 kHz which would mean if analyzing signals with the high frequency band receiver on the GREAT instrument (4.7 THz) a spectral resolving power (λ/Δ λ) higher than 10⁸.     

电水准的参数测定

介绍了低纬子午环的水平差分两部分测定的要求和电水准的实际配置情况，分析了在这种配置中系统参数增多的原因，叙述了测定这些参数的方法，并提出在参数测定后如何保持系统状态的要求。     

天王星卫星CCD（SRT）位置测量的数字图象处理

天然卫星的位置测量在天体测量和天体力学中都有重要意义。国外有人对天王星卫星位置测量应用新的图象处理方法得到了高精度的卫星观测资料。利用云南天文台１米望远镜上获得的两颗卫星的ＳＲＴ的ＣＣＤ观测资料进行了新老图象处理方法的比较研究。当用两颗卫星直接作定标测量ＣＣＤ的比例尺和指向时表明：主星晕的处理对卫星位置的测量非常重要。去晕处理后,测得的比例尺和指向的弥散将大为减少。     

The LYRA Instrument Onboard PROBA2: Description and In-Flight Performance

The Large Yield Radiometer (LYRA) is an XUV–EUV–MUV (soft X-ray to mid-ultraviolet) solar radiometer onboard the European Space Agency Project for On-Board Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) mission, which was launched in November 2009. LYRA acquires solar-irradiance measurements at a high cadence (nominally 20?Hz) in four broad spectral channels, from soft X-ray to MUV, which have been chosen for their relevance to solar physics, space weather, and aeronomy. We briefly review the design of the instrument, give an overview of the data products distributed through the instrument website, and describe how the data are calibrated. We also briefly present a summary of the main fields of research currently under investigation by the LYRA consortium.     

时空参考系中的坐标和时间单位

针对目前时空参考系中关于坐标和时间单位的一些模糊认识,回顾了国际单位制SI与计量基准的定义及其发展,分析了国际计量局(BIPM)对测量单位SI米和SI秒的新定义,得出了在原时的单位采用SI秒时,各种时空参考系中的坐标量(坐标时和空间坐标)的单位均可认为是SI秒的结论。同时通过分析,明确了目前太阳系历表中使用的天文单位系统在时空参考系中的使用方法。     

The Field Camera Unit of the WSO/UV telescope

The WSO-UV space observatory, an UV-optimized 1.7 m Ritchey-Chretien telescope, will investigate many astrophysical phenomena from planetary science to cosmology. The Field Camera Unit is a multi-spectral radial instrument on the focal plane of WSO-UV. It will have three channels covering the wide spectral range from 115 nm to 800 nm and it will be operated in imaging, low-resolution spectroscopic, polarimetric and spectro-polarimetric modes. This paper will discuss and review the main characteristics and the present status of this instrument.