ALBERT

Description: The Constellation concept was first proposed during a discussion at the 19th CEOS Plenary, in London, in November 2005. The first Paper of the Constellation Concept was presented at the CEOS Strategic Implementation Team meeting (SIT-18), in Frascati, in March 2006, and strongly endorsed by the CEOS Principals. The concept attempts to provide agencies with tools for implementation of the elements that have been previously discussed in international forums (GEO Work Plan, GCOS Implementation Plan). This provides a solid foundation from the community providing requirements. Though agency spending is governed by national requirements, CEOS seeks synergies among member agency programs to fulfil GEOSS requirements, defining guidelines and standards to help agencies to determine from the outset what can be achieved. The constellations concept will allow the development of a commonalties approach among different agencies. At the heart of the application of the Constellations concept is the definition of a series of standards (specific to each Constellation) - required to be satisfied for any mission to be included in the constellation - and a process of recognition/acceptance, whereby an agency applies to SIT to have one or more of its missions (ideally from the outset of planning) recognised as meeting the constellation standards and thereby satisfying the relevant user community needs.

Description: The objectives of the George E. Brown, Jr. NEO Survey Program are to detect, track, catalogue, and characterize the physical characteristics of NEOs equal to or larger than 140 meters in diameter with a perihelion distance of less than 1.3 AU (Astronomical Units) from the Sun, achieving 90 percent completion of the survey within 15 years after enactment of the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. The Act was signed into law by President Bush on December 30, 2005. A study team, led by NASAs Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation (PA&E), conducted the analysis of alternatives with inputs from several other U.S. government agencies, international organizations, and representatives of private organizations. The team developed a range of possible options from public and private sources and then analyzed their capabilities and levels of performance including development schedules and technical risks.

Description: Our universe is most luminous at far-infrared and submillimeter wavelengths (100 GHz - 10 THz) after the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. This region of the electromagnetic spectrum provides critical tracers for the study of a wide range of astrophysical and planetary phenomena. This spectral range contains information on the origin of the planets, stars, galaxies, and clusters; the geometry and matter/energy content of the Universe, atmospheric constituents and dynamics of the planets and comets and tracers for global monitoring and the ultimate health of the Earth. Sensors at far-infrared and submillimeter wavelengths provide unprecedented sensitivity for astrophysical, planetary, and earth observing instruments. Very often, for a spaced based platform where the instruments are not limited by atmospheric losses and absorption, the overall instrument sensitivity is dictated by the sensitivity of the sensors themselves. Moreover, some of the cryogenic sensors at submillimeter wavelengths provide almost quantum-limited sensitivity. This paper provides an overview of the submillimeter-wave sensors and their performance and capabilities for space applications.

Description: Visible and near-IR observations of the Kuiper Belt Object (136472) 2005 FY(9) have indicated the presence of unusually long (1 cm or more) optical path lengths in a layer of methane ice. Using microphysical and radiative transfer modeling, we show that even at the frigid temperatures in the outer reaches of the solar system, a slab of low porosity methane ice can indeed form by pressureless sintering of micron-sized grains, and it can qualitatively reproduce the salient features of the measured spectra. A good semiquantitative match with the near-IR spectra can be obtained with a realistic slab model, provided the spectra are scaled to a visible albedo of 0.6, at the low end of the values currently estimated from Spitzer thermal measurements. Consistent with previous modeling studies, matching spectra scaled to higher albedos requires the incorporation of strong backscattering effects. The albedo may become better constrained through an iterative application of the slab model to the analysis of the thermal measurements from Spitzer and the visible/near-IR reflectance spectra. The slab interpretation offers two falsifiable predictions (1) Absence of an opposition surge, which is commonly attributed to the fluffiness of the optical surface. This prediction is best testable with a spacecraft, as Earth-based observations at true opposition will not be possible until early next century. (2) Unlikelihood of the simultaneous occurrence of very long spectroscopic path lengths in both methane and nitrogen ice on the surface of any Kuiper Belt Object, as the more volatile nitrogen would hinder densification in methane ice.

Description: The large numbers of nucleus fragments observed are a spectacular illustration of the process of cascading fragmentation in progress, a concept introduced to interpret the properties of the Kreutz system of sungrazers and comet D/1993 F2. The objective is to describe the fragmentation sequence and hierarchy of comet 73P, the nature of the fragmentation process and observed events, and the expected future evolution of this comet. The orbital arc populated by the fragments refers to an interval of 3.74 days in the perihelion time. This result suggests that they all could be products (but not necessarily first-generation fragments) of two 1995 events, in early September (involving an enormous outburst) and at the beginning of November. The interval of perihelion times is equivalent to a range of about 2.5 m/s in separation velocity or 0.00012 the Sun's attraction in nongravitational deceleration. Their combined effect suggests minor orbital momentum changes acquired during fragmentation and decelerations compatible with survival over two revolutions about the Sun. Fragment B is a likely first-generation product of one of the 1995 events. From the behavior of the primary fragment C, 73P is not a dying comet, even though fragment B and others were episodically breaking up into many pieces. Each episode began with the sudden appearance of a starlike nucleus condensation and a rapidly expanding outburst, followed by a development of jets, and a gradual tailward extension of the fading condensation, until the discrete masses embedded in it could be resolved. In April-May, this debris traveled first to the southwest, but models show their eventual motion toward the projected orbit. Fainter fragments were imaged over limited time, apparently because of their erratic activity (interspersed with periods of dormancy) rather than improptu disintegration. A dust trail joining the fragments and reminiscent of comet 141P/Machholz suggests that cascading fragmentation exerts itself profoundly over an extremely broad mass range of particulate debris.

Description: This viewgraph presentation reviews NASA's 2006 Solar System Exploration (SSE) roadmap for lunar extreme environment technologies.

Description: The last two years have seen incredible development in numerical relativity: from fractions of an orbit, evolutions of an equal-mass binary have reached multiple orbits, and convergent gravitational waveforms have been produced from several research groups and numerical codes. We are now able to move our attention from pure numerics to astrophysics, and address scenarios relevant to current and future gravitational-wave detectors.Over the last 12 months at NASA Goddard, we have extended the accuracy of our Hahn-Dol code, and used it to move toward these goals. We have achieved high-accuracy simulations of black-hole binaries of low initial eccentricity, with enough orbits of inspiral before merger to allow us to produce hybrid waveforms that reflect accurately the entire lifetime of the BH binary. We are extending this work, looking at the effects of unequal masses and spins.

Description: We present a detailed spectral analysis of the prompt and afterglow emission of four nearby long-soft gamma-ray bursts (GRBs 980425,030329,031203, and 060218) that were spectroscopically found to be associated with Type Ic supernovae and compare them to the general GRB population. For each event, we investigate the spectral and luminosity evolution and estimate the total energy budget based on broadband observations. The observational inventory for these events has become rich enough to allow estimates of their energy content in relativistic and subrelativistic form. The result is a global portrait of the effects of the physical processes responsible for producing long-soft GRBs. In particular, we find that the values of the energy released in mildly relativistic outflows appears to have a significantly smaller scatter than those found in highly relativistic ejecta. This is consistent with a picture in which the energy released inside the progenitor star is roughly standard, while the fraction of that energy that ends up in highly relativistic ejecta outside the star can vary dramatically between different events.

Description: We performed planar shock recovery experiments on natural pyrrhotite at pressures up to 6.9 GPa. We find that high-field isothermal remanent magnetization in pyrrhotite is demagnetized up to 90% by shock due to preferential removal of low coercivity components of magnetization. Contrary to static experiments, we do not observe complete demagnetization. Post shock permanent changes in magnetic properties include increasing saturation isothermal remanent magnetization, bulk coercivity and lowtemperature memory, and changes in squareness of hysteresis. These changes are consistent with an increase in the volume fraction of single domain grains. The lack of magnetic anomalies over large Martian impact basins is not expected to be solely due to shock demagnetization of the crust. We find that pyrrhotite-bearing rocks and meteorites can retain records of Martian magnetic fields even if shocked to pressures approaching 7 GPa. However, some paleointensity techniques may underestimate this field.

Description: The six Apollo surface missions returned 2,196 individual rock and soil samples, with a total mass of 381.6 kg. Samples were collected based on visual examination by the astronauts and consultation with geologists in the science back room in Houston. The samples were photographed during collection, packaged in uniquely-identified containers, and transported to the Lunar Module. All samples collected on the Moon were returned to Earth. NASA's upcoming return to the Moon will be different. Astronauts will have extended stays at an out-post and will collect more samples than they will return. They will need curation and analysis facilities on the Moon in order to carefully select samples for return to Earth.