• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.391-397
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• 2012

The SPICA (SPace Infrared Telescope for Cosmology & Astrophysics) project is a next-generation infrared space telescope optimized for mid- and far-infrared observation with a cryogenically cooled 3m-class telescope. It will achieve the high resolution as well as the unprecedented sensitivity from mid to far-infrared range. The FPC (Focal Plane Camera) proposed by KASI as an international collaboration is a near-infrared instrument. The FPC-S and FPC-G are responsible for the scientific observation in the near-infrared and the fine guiding, respectively. The FPC-G will significantly reduce pointing error down to below 0.075 arcsec through the observation of guiding stars in the focal plane. We analyzed the pointing requirement from the focal plane instruments as well as the error factors affecting the pointing stability. We also obtained the expected performance in operation modes. We concluded that the FPC-G can achieve the pointing stability below 0.075 arcsec which is the requirement from the focal plane instruments.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.57.4-57.4
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• 2019

BITSE is a project of balloon-borne experiments for a next-generation solar coronagraph developed by a collaboration with KASI and NASA. The coronagraph is built to observe the linearly polarized brightness of solar corona with a polarization camera, a filter wheel, and an aperture door. For the observation, the coronagraph is supported by the power distribution unit (PDU), a pointing system WASP (Wallops Arc-Second Pointer), telemetry & telecommand system SIP (Support Instrument Package) which are developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Wallops Flight Facility, and Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility. The BITSE Command and Data Handling (C&DH) system used a cost-off-the-shelf electronics to process all data sent and received by the coronagraph, including the support system operation by RS232/422, USB3, Ethernet, and digital and analog signals. The flight software is developed using the core Flight System (cFS) which is a reusable software framework and set of reusable software applications which take advantage of a rich heritage of successful space mission of NASA. The flight software can process encoding and decoding data, control the subsystems, and provide observation autonomy. We developed a python-based testing framework to improve software reliability. The flight software development is one of the crucial contributions of KASI and an important milestone for the next project which is developing a solar coronagraph to be installed at International Space Station.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.57.2-57.2
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• 2019

The NISS (Near-infrared Imaging Spectrometer for Star formation history) onboard NEXTSat-1 was successfully launched on last December and is now under the operation phase. The capability of both imaging and spectroscopy is a unique function of the NISS. It has realized the imaging spectroscopy (R~20) with a wide field of view of $2{\times}2deg$. in a wide near-infrared range from 0.95 to $2.5{\mu}m$. The major scientific mission is to study the cosmic star formation history in the local and distant universe. It also demonstrated the space technologies related to the infrared spectro-photometry in space. The NISS is performing the imaging spectroscopic survey for local star-forming galaxies, clusters of galaxies, star-forming regions, ecliptic deep fields and so on. As an extension of the NISS, the SPEHREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) was selected as the NASA MIDEX (Medium-class Explorer) mission (PI Institute: Caltech). As an international partner, KASI will participate in the development and the science for SPHEREx. It will perform the first all-sky infrared spectro-photometric survey to probe the origin of our Universe, to explore the origin and evolution of galaxies, and to explore whether planets around other stars could harbor life. Compared to the NISS, the SPHEREx is designed to have a much wider FoV of $3.5{\times}11.3deg$. as well as wider spectral range from 0.75 to $5.0{\mu}m$. Here, we introduce the status of the two space missions.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.31-40
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• 2006

Near-IR $H_2$ emission features in the northern region of the Orion A giant molecular cloud were observed in the $CO\;J\;=\;1\;{\rightarrow}\;0$ line in search of CO outflows. Out of the 30 sources surveyed, CO line wings were detected toward 28 positions, suggesting a strong correlation between $H_2$ jets and CO outflows. Blueshifted wings were detected toward 26 positions while redshifted wings were detected toward 15 positions, which suggests that there is a bias in the source selection. The bias is more severe in OMC 3 than in OMC 2. Since the protostars in OMC 3 are younger and more deeply embedded, the bias may be caused by the difference of extinction between blueshifted and redshifted outflows. Some physical parameters of the outflows were derived from the line profiles.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.84.2-84.2
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• 2011

Astrophysical jets play important roles in many interesting astronomical phenomena, such as star formation, gamma-ray bursts, and active galactic nuclei. The jets are thought to be driven by rotating disks through magneto-centrifugal processes. However, quantitative understanding of the jet-driving mechanism has been difficult because examples showing rotation in both disk and jet are rare. One of the important quantities in the models of jet engine is the size of the jet-launching region. The bipolar jet of the NGC 1333 IRAS 4A2 protostar shows a lateral velocity gradient, which suggests that the SiO jet is rotating around its axis. The jet rotation is consistent with the rotation of the accretion disk. The disk-jet rotation kinematics suggests that the jet-launching region on the disk, or the outflow foot-ring, has a radius of about 2 AU, which supports the disk-wind models.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.63-66
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• 2014

Since Rigollet first discovered a comet in 1939, many follow-up observations have been made, particularly in Europe. It is now known that the Rigollet comet is identical with the one observed by Herschel in 1788, and thus it is now called 35P/1939 O1 or the Herschel-Rigollet comet. Yumi, a Japanese astronomer, also observed the Rigollet comet in Korea using a 6-inch refractor telescope, and published his data in two Japanese journals (Bulletin of the Observatory of the Government-General of Korea and Publication of the Lecture on Meteorology). In his paper, Yumi also referred to observations by Hirose and Kanda in Japan. However, their works have not been given attention by international society. In this study, we analyze the observation data of Yumi and present preliminary orbital elements using it with a modified Gauss method. We expect that this study will be used to refine the orbital elements of the Rigollet comet by orbital-calculation experts. For that reason, we have also transcribed all the observational data presented by Yumi.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2020

The Chinese BeiDou Satellite Navigation System consists of three kinds of constellations: the geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), the inclined geosynchronous satellite orbit (IGSO), and the medium Earth orbit (MEO). The BeiDou has expanded its service coverage from regional to global. Recently, the BeiDou has been widely used in ionospheric total electron content (TEC) research. In this study, we analyzed the BeiDou signals for ionospheric TEC monitoring over Jeju Island in South Korea. The BeiDou GEO TEC showed a clear pattern of diurnal variations. In addition, we compared the TEC values from the BeiDou GEO, the BeiDou IGSO, GPS, and International GNSS Service (IGS) Global Ionosphere Maps (GIM). There was a difference of about 5 TEC units between the BeiDou GEO and the IGS GIM. This may be due to the altitude difference between the different navigation satellites.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.92.1-92.1
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• 2011

NASA launched Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on February 2011 in order to understand the cause of solar activities and their influences on the Earth and the near-Earth space. KASI is constructing Korean Data Center for SDO based on the letter of agreement between KASI and NASA for space weather research. SDO produces about 1.5 TB a day and its raw data amounts to about 550 TB in a year. Stanford University has been already operating the data center for scientific raw data, but there is a limit to use its data for space weather research and space weather service in real time because of network environment. Korean Data Center for SDO will provide scientific data not only to Korean institutes but also to international space weather societies. KASI has designed the data transfer system by using GLORIAD in order to get higher performance and stability. After the first construction of data transfer system and storage system in this year, we will increase the storage capacity of the data center in phases considering new developments in a storage technology and drop of their prices.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.227-233
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• 2018

This study presents the generation and accuracy assessment of predicted orbital ephemeris based on satellite laser ranging (SLR) for geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites. Two GEO satellites are considered: GEO-Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite (KOMPSAT)-2B (GK-2B) for simulational validation and Compass-G1 for real-world quality assessment. SLR-based orbit determination (OD) is proactively performed to generate orbital ephemeris. The length and the gap of the predicted orbital ephemeris were set by considering the consolidated prediction format (CPF). The resultant predicted ephemeris of GK-2B is directly compared with a pre-specified true orbit to show 17.461 m and 23.978 m, in 3D root-mean-square (RMS) position error and maximum position error for one day, respectively. The predicted ephemeris of Compass-G1 is overlapped with the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) final orbit from the GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) analysis center (AC) to yield 36.760 m in 3D RMS position differences. It is also compared with the CPF orbit from the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS) to present 109.888 m in 3D RMS position differences. These results imply that SLR-based orbital ephemeris can be an alternative candidate for improving the accuracy of commonly used radar-based orbital ephemeris for GEO satellites.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.82.2-82.3
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• 2019

Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI), in collaboration with the NASA Goddard Sparce Flight Center (GSFC), will develop a next generation coronagraph for the International Space Station (ISS). COronal Diagnostic EXperiment (CODEX) uses multiple filters to obtain simultaneous measurements of electron density, temperature, and velocity within a single instrument. CODEX's regular, systematic, comprehensive dataset will test theories of solar wind acceleration and source, as well as serve to validate and enable improvement of space-weather/operational models in the crucial source region of the solar wind. CODEX subsystems include the coronagraph, pointing system, command and data handling (C&DH) electronics, and power distribution unit. CODEX is integrated onto a standard interface which provides power and communication. All full resolution images are telemeters to the ground, where data from multiple images and sequences are co-added, spatially binned, and ratioed as needed for analysis.