Search results for "Spacecraft"
showing 10 items of 75 documents
The BepiColombo MORE gravimetry and rotation experiments with the ORBIT14 software
2016
The BepiColombo mission to Mercury is an ESA/JAXA cornerstone mission, consisting of two spacecraft in orbit around Mercury addressing several scientific issues. One spacecraft is the Mercury Planetary Orbiter, with full instrumentation to perform radio science experiments. Very precise radio tracking from Earth, on-board accelerometer and optical measurements will provide large data sets. From these it will be possible to study the global gravity field of Mercury and its tidal variations, its rotation state and the orbit of its centre of mass. With the gravity field and rotation state, it is possible to constrain the internal structure of the planet. With the orbit of Mercury, it is possib…
Subarcsecond Location of IGR J17480-2446 with Rossi XTE
2012
On 2010 October 13, the X-ray astronomical satellite Rossi XTE, during the observation of the newly discovered accretion powered X-ray pulsar IGR J17480--2446, detected a lunar occultation of the source. From knowledge of lunar topography and Earth, Moon, and spacecraft ephemeris at the epoch of the event, we determined the source position with an accuracy of 40 mas (1{\sigma} c.l.), which is interesting, given the very poor imaging capabilities of RXTE (\sim 1\circ). For the first time, using a non-imaging X-ray observatory, the position of an X-ray source with a subarcsecond accuracy is derived, demonstrating the neat capabilities of a technique that can be fruitfully applied to current a…
Estimating Missing Information by Cluster Analysis and Normalized Convolution
2018
International audience; Smart city deals with the improvement of their citizens' quality of life. Numerous ad-hoc sensors need to be deployed to know humans' activities as well as the conditions in which these actions take place. Even if these sensors are cheaper and cheaper, their installation and maintenance cost increases rapidly with their number. We propose a methodology to limit the number of sensors to deploy by using a standard clustering technique and the normalized convolution to estimate environmental information whereas sensors are actually missing. In spite of its simplicity, our methodology lets us provide accurate assesses.
Seismic sources and stress transfer interaction among axial normal faults and external thrust fronts in the Northern Apennines (Italy): A working hyp…
2016
In this study we analyse the main potential seismic sources in some axial and frontal sectors of the Northern Apennines, in Italy. This region was hit by a peculiar series of earthquakes that started in 1916 on the external thrust fronts near Rimini. Later, in 1917-1921, seismicity (up to Mw approximate to 6.5) shifted into the axial zone and clearly migrated north-westward, along the belt of active normal faults. The collection of fault-slip data focused on the active normal faults potentially involved in this earthquake series. The acquired data allowed us to better characterize the geometry and kinematics of the faults. In a few instances, the installation of local seismic networks durin…
Models and data analysis tools for the Solar Orbiter mission
2020
All authors: Rouillard, A. P.; Pinto, R. F.; Vourlidas, A.; De Groof, A.; Thompson, W. T.; Bemporad, A.; Dolei, S.; Indurain, M.; Buchlin, E.; Sasso, C.; Spadaro, D.; Dalmasse, K.; Hirzberger, J.; Zouganelis, I.; Strugarek, A.; Brun, A. S.; Alexandre, M.; Berghmans, D.; Raouafi, N. E.; Wiegelmann, T.; Pagano, P.; Arge, C. N.; Nieves-Chinchilla, T.; Lavarra, M.; Poirier, N.; Amari, T.; Aran, A.; Andretta, V.; Antonucci, E.; Anastasiadis, A.; Auchère, F.; Bellot Rubio, L.; Nicula, B.; Bonnin, X.; Bouchemit, M.; Budnik, E.; Caminade, S.; Cecconi, B.; Carlyle, J.; Cernuda, I.; Davila, J. M.; Etesi, L.; Espinosa Lara, F.; Fedorov, A.; Fineschi, S.; Fludra, A.; Génot, V.; Georgoulis, M. K.; Gilbe…
The Philae lander mission and science overview.
2017
The Philae lander accomplished the first soft landing and the first scientific experiments of a human-made spacecraft on the surface of a comet. Planned, expected and unexpected activities and events happened during the descent, the touch-downs, the hopping across and the stay and operations on the surface. The key results were obtained during 12–14 November 2014, at 3 AU from the Sun, during the 63 h long period of the descent and of the first science sequence on the surface. Thereafter, Philae went into hibernation, waking up again in late April 2015 with subsequent communication periods with Earth (via the orbiter), too short to enable new scientific activities. The science return of the…
The intensity contrast of solar photospheric faculae and network elements : II. Evolution over the rising phase of solar cycle 23
2006
We studied the radiative properties of small magnetic elements (active region faculae and the network) during the rising phase of solar cycle 23 from 1996 to 2001, determining their contrasts as a function of heliocentric angle, magnetogram signal, and the solar cycle phase. We combined near-simultaneous full disk images of the line-of-sight magnetic field and photospheric continuum intensity provided by the MDI instrument on board the SOHO spacecraft. Sorting the magnetogram signal into different ranges allowed us to distinguish between the contrast of different magnetic structures. We find that the contrast center-to-limb variation (CLV) of these small magnetic elements is independent of …
A new hybrid method to improve the ultra-short-term prediction of LOD
2019
Accurate, short-term predictions of Earth orientation parameters (EOP) are needed for many real-time applications including precise tracking and navigation of interplanetary spacecraft, climate forecasting, and disaster prevention. Out of the EOP, the LOD (length of day), which represents the changes in the Earth’s rotation rate, is the most challenging to predict since it is largely affected by the torques associated with changes in atmospheric circulation. In this study, the combination of Copula-based analysis and singular spectrum analysis (SSA) method is introduced to improve the accuracy of the forecasted LOD. The procedure operates as follows: First, we derive the dependence structur…
Report of the COSPAR Mars special regions colloquium
2010
International audience; In this paper we present the findings of a COSPAR Mars Special Regions Colloquium held in Rome in 2007. We review and discuss the definition of Mars Special Regions, the physical parameters used to define Mars Special Regions, and physical features on Mars that can be interpreted as Mars Special Regions. We conclude that any region experiencing temperatures > -25 degrees C for a few hours a year and a water activity > 0.5 can potentially allow the replication of terrestrial microorganisms. Physical features on Mars that can be interpreted as meeting these conditions constitute a Mars Special Region. Based on current knowledge of the martian environment and the conser…
Approaches to relativistic positioning around Earth and error estimations
2016
In the context of relativistic positioning, the coordinates of a given user may be calculated by using suitable information broadcast by a 4-tuple of satellites. Our 4-tuples belong to the Galileo constellation. Recently, we estimated the positioning errors due to uncertainties in the satellite world lines (U-errors). A distribution of U-errors was obtained, at various times, in a set of points covering a large region surrounding Earth. Here, the positioning errors associated to the simplifying assumption that photons move in Minkowski space-time (S-errors) are estimated and compared with the U-errors. Both errors have been calculated for the same points and times to make comparisons possib…