• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.95.2-95.2
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• 2013

The Van Allen Probes were designed to study the Earth's radiation belts on various scales of space and time. The identical two spacecrafts going nearly eccentric orbits lap each other several times over the course of the mission and each probe carries five instrument suites to address the science objectives on the radiation belt. Since Van Allen Probes launched on August 30, 2012, the probes detecte several storm events up to now. To understand the particle acceleration and loss mechanism in the radiation belt, we first focus on the energetic electrons' dynamics detected by ECT (Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma Suite). ECT measures near-Earth space's radiation particles covering the full electron and ion spectra from ~ eV to 10's of MeV with sufficient energy resolution. In this paper, we present the preliminary results of the recent several storm events using electron data from ECT(MagEIS and REPT).

• Atmosphere
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.56-68
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• 2002

In this study, an overview of the Earth Observing System (EOS) program is provided with discussions on its spacecrafts and instruments, and on the scientific issues. The EOS satellites aim at monitoring the Earth environmental system by observing parameters of subsystems such as atmosphere, ocean, land, and biosphere. The first EOS flagship, Terra, was launched on December 1999. Five instruments onboard Terra can measure cloud and aerosol properties, radiation, terrestrial surface, and ocean color. The second EOS flagship, Aqua, which was launched on May 2002, loads six instruments that measure clouds, radiation, precipitation, terrestrial surface, ocean color and sea surface temperature. The observational data available from the EOS satellites may complement data from the Communication-Oceanography-Meteorology satellite, which will be launched in 2008, for meteorological and environmental forecasts.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.221-228
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• 1998

The effect of air drag was researched when a low-earth orbit spacecraft using power-limited thruster rendezvoused another low-earth orbit spacecraft. The air density was assumed to decrease exponentially. The radius of parking orbit was 6655.935km and that of target orbit was 7321.529km. From the trajectories of active vehicles, the fuelconsumption and the magnitude of thrust acceleration, we could conclude that the effect of air drag had to be considered in fuel optimal rendezvous problem between low-earth orbit spacecrafts. In multiple-revolution rendezvous case, the air drag was more effective.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.285-294
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• 2014

The uneven mass distribution of the Moon highly perturbs the lunar spacecrafts. This uneven mass distribution leads to peculiar dynamical features of the lunar orbiters. The critical inclination is the value of inclination which keeps the deviation of the argument of pericentre from the initial values to be zero. Considerable investigations have been performed for critical inclination when the gravity field is assumed to be symmetric around the equator, namely for oblate gravity field to which Earth's satellites are most likely to be subjected. But in the case of a lunar orbiter, the gravity field of mass distribution is rather asymmetric, that is, sectorial, and tesseral, harmonic coefficients are big enough so they can't be neglected. In the present work, the effects of the first sectorial and tesseral harmonic coefficients in addition to the first zonal harmonic coefficients on the critical inclination of a lunar artificial satellite are investigated. The study is carried out using the Hamiltonian framework. The Hamiltonian of the problem is cconstructed and the short periodic terms are eliminated using Delaunay canonical variables. Considering the above perturbations, numerical simulations for a hypothetical lunar orbiter are presented. Finally, this study reveals that the critical inclination is quite different from the critical inclination of traditional sense and/or even has multiple solutions. Consequently, different families of critical inclination are obtained and analyzed.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.171-182
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• 2010

The reliability prediction analysis is a feedback tool that designer uses to provide insight into the component designs. This insight may indicate sensitive components within the design. This paper examines predicted failure rates for hybrid dc-dc converter for spacecraft using MIL-HDBK-217F prediction methodology. The results from part count/stress analysis represent priority components that affect the converter failures. The high priority components are analyzed to find out stress factor based on MIL-HDBK-217F. This information provides an opportunity for designer to improve the reliability of the product in development process.

• Current Industrial and Technological Trends in Aerospace
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.96-103
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• 2010

The propulsion systems such as upper stages of launch vehicles, orbiters, spacecrafts have to operate in the zero gravity environment. Because the flight condition where the vehicle undergoes is different from the normal gravity state, many studies have been being in progress. Fluid behavior in the zero gravity condition is differently shown in the normal gravity state because the importance of the intermolecular force, such as adhesion, cohesion, and surface tension is enlarged. In this paper, we investigate the characteristic of fluid behavior and describe effects and problems on the liquid propulsion system due to these fluid behavior. We also check which studies are in progress in order to solve these problems.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.11
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• pp.1072-1078
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• 2008

An adaptive control algorithm for spacecraft rendezvous and docking in a Keplerian orbit is presented. The equations of relative motion of two spacecrafts expressed in a local-vertical-local-horizontal rectangular frame are converted to a general Hamiltonian form, then an adaptive control method developed for the uncertain Hamiltonian system is applied to the rendezvous and docking problem. A smooth projection algorithm is applied to keep the parameter estimates inside a singularity-free region, and a numerical example shows that the developed controller successfully deals with the unknown mass of the chaser spacecraft.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.27.1-27.1
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• 2010

We examined variations of the solar wind magnetic fields which are characterized by smooth field rotations with time scales of 2-7 hours, and identified the existence of two classes of structures. One is a small-scale magnetic flux rope, and the other shows clear characteristics of Alfven waves. In this study, we attempted to clarify fundamental characteristics of the structure of the second class. We have found that the observed features are basically described by the cylindrical structure consisting of the uniform background field and the circular torsional wave field propagating along the background field. We performed the least-squares fitting analysis for the observed rotational variations with a simple model of the torsional Alfven wave as described above. The fitted results show satisfactory agreement with observations and thus allow us to determine the structure of the region occupied by the torsional Alfven wave. Furthermore, the examination of ACE and WIND observations reveals several cases in which two spacecrafts encountered the same structure at different position and different times. Comparison of such cases provides further evidence that the observed rotational field variations are due to the torsional Alfven waves, and not due to elliptically-polarized Alfven waves.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.170-178
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• 2009

In order to develope a common ground system, a general procedure language that can be used in both EGSE and MCS is primarily needed. As the first step in developing a common test and integration procedure language, KARI's ATS for AIT and MCE for GS were compared to some of the most representative languages such as PLUTO regarded European standard, STOL and ELISA and PIL. Based on the analysis, design features of developing a common test and integration procedure language were presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.495-504
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• 2014

Solar sail spacecrafts can gain propulsion using the momentum change through reflecting the photon packets of energy from the Sun. The sail slowly but continuously accelerates to accomplish a wide-range of potential missions. To develop the potential mission of the solar sail, the configuration, the film characteristics and the deployment devices should be carefully considered. In this paper, recent development and activities of the solar sail are introduced and design technology of the sail subsystem is investigated.