• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.87-98
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• 2020

The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) has been developing a next-generation coronagraph (NGC) in cooperation with NASA to measure the coronal electron density, temperature, and speed simultaneously, using four different optical filters around 400 nm. KASI organized an expedition to demonstrate the coronagraph measurement scheme and the instrumental technology during the 2017 total solar eclipse (TSE) across the USA. The observation site was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA. We built an eclipse observation system, the Diagnostic Coronal Experiment (DICE), composed of two identical telescopes to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The observation was conducted at four wavelengths and three linear polarization directions in the limited total eclipse time of about 140 seconds. We successfully obtained polarization data for the corona but we were not able to obtain information on the coronal electron temperature and speed due to the low signal-to-noise ratio of the optical system and strong emission from prominences located at the western limb. In this study, we report the development of DICE and the observation results from the eclipse expedition. TSE observation and analysis with our self-developed instrument showed that a coronagraph needs to be designed carefully to achieve its scientific purpose. We gained valuable experience for future follow-up NASA-KASI joint missions: the Balloon-borne Investigation of the Temperature and Speed of Electrons in the Corona (BITSE) and the COronal Diagnostic EXperiment (CODEX).

• 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.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.24.4-25
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• 2008

Limb scanning measurements of the O2 (0-0) Atmospheric band emission by the TIDI instrument aboard the TIMED satellite during 2003-2005 are analyzed to examine the tidal effects on their vertical emission rate according to the solar and geomagnetic activities. The data are restricted at latitudes $60^{\circ}S-60^{\circ}N$ to avoid the contributions by the auroral emission. The variation of the vertical emission rate in latitude and local time is summarized in the yaw periods. The vertical emission profiles of the O2 (0-0) Atmospheric band nightglow averaged in the $10^{\circ}$ latitude range are investigated. The result shows the inverse relationship between the peak emission height and the integrated brightness.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.247-250
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• 2008

The paper presents the advanced radiometric calibration method, called the lRCM (Iterative Radiometric Calibration Method), in order to avoid an operational constraint (solar source) for calibration. The IRCM assumes that an optical instrument is equipped with a filter assembly which consists of same band filters with different transmission ratios. Given all the noise sources (including the artificial one caused by the filters) of an image sensor, the noncentral ${\chi}^2$ distribution of the output result is induced by the approach of a noise PDF (Power Density Function). Finally, the radiometric calibration problem is transformed into equating two independent relations for the image sensor gains through the specified distribution.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2004.10b
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• pp.376-379
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• 2004

Operational orbit determination (OOD) depends on the capability of generating accurate prediction of spacecraft ephemeris in a short period. The predicted ephemeris is used in the operations such as instrument pointing and orbit maneuvers. In this study the orbit prediction problem consists of the estimating diverse arc length orbit using GPS navigation data, the predicted orbit for the next 48 hours, and the fitted 30-hour arc length orbits of double differenced GPS measurements for the predicted 48-hour period. For 24-hour orbit arc length, the predicted orbit difference from truth orbit was 205 meters due to the along-track error. The main error sources for the orbit prediction of the Low Earth Orbiter (LEO) satellite are solar pressure and atmosphere density.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.48.1-48.1
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• 2009

In recent years, many candidates for extra-solar planet have been discovered from various measurement techniques. Fueled by such discoveries, new space missions for direct detection of earth-like planets have been proposed and actively studied. TPF instrument is a fair example of such scientific endeavors. One of the many technical problems that space missions such as TPF would need to solve is deconvolution of the collapsed (i.e. spatially and temporally) spectral signal arriving at the detector surface and the deconvolution computation may fall into a local minimum solution, instead of the global minimum solution, in the optimization process, yielding mis-interpretation of the spectral signal from the potential earth-like planets. To this extend, observational and theoretical understanding on the spectral bio-signal from the Earth serves as the key reference datum for the accurate interpretation of the planetary bio-signatures from other star systems. In this study, we present ray tracing computational model for the on-going simulation study on the Earth bio-signatures. A multi-layered atmospheric model and sea ice variation model were added to the existing target Earth model and a hypothetical space instrument (called AmonRa) observed the spectral bio-signals of the model Earth from the L1 halo orbit. The resulting spectrums of the Earth show well known "red-edge" spectrums as well as key molecular absorption lines important to harbor life forms. The model details, computational process and the resulting bio-signatures are presented together with implications to the future study direction.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.509-515
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• 2016

We report on development of a ground-based bi-axial Search-Coil Magnetometer (SCM) designed to measure time-varying magnetic fields associated with magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling processes. The instrument provides two-axis magnetic field wave vector data in the Ultra Low Frequency or ULF (1 mHz to 5 Hz) range. ULF waves are well known to play an important role in energy transport and loss in geospace. The SCM will primarily be used to observe generation and propagation of the subclass of ULF waves. The analog signals produced by the search-coil magnetic sensors are amplified and filtered over a specified frequency range via electronics. Data acquisition system digitizes data at 10 samples/s rate with 16-bit resolution. Test results show that the resolution of the magnetometer reaches $0.1pT/{\sqrt{Hz}}$ at 1 Hz, and demonstrate its satisfactory performance, detecting geomagnetic pulsations. This instrument is scheduled to be installed at the Korean Antarctic station, Jang Bogo, in the austral summer 2016-2017.

• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.13-20
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• 2019

Since 1985, the Dobson Spectrophotometer has been operated at Yonsei University, and this instrument has monitored the daily representative total ozone in Seoul. Climatological value for total ozone in Seoul is updated by using the daily representative observation data from 1985 to 2017. After updating the daily representative total ozone data, seasonal and inter-annual variation of total ozone in Seoul is also estimated after calculating inter-comparison between ground (Dobson Spectrophotometer) and satellite [Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI)] observations. The global average of total ozone measured by satellite is 297 DU, and its recent amount is about 3.5% lower than the global amount in 1980s. In Seoul, daily representative total ozone is ranged from 225 DU to 518 DU with longterm mean value of 324.3 DU. In addition, monthly mean total ozone is estimated from 290 DU (October) to 362 DU (March), and yearly average of total ozone have been continuously increased since 1985. For the long-term trend of total ozone in Seoul, this study is considered the seasonal variation, Solar Cycle, and Quasi-Biennial Oscillation. In addition to the natural oscillation effect, this study also considered to the long-term variation of sudden increase of total ozone due to the secondary ozone peak. By considering these natural effects, the long-term total ozone trends from 1985 to 2017 are estimated to be 1.11~1.46%/decade.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.139-150
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• 1998

We measured the terrestrial nightglow of OI $6300{\AA}$ in the thermosphere (~250km) using a ground-based Fabry-Perot interferometer at the King Sejong Station, Antarcticfrom March through September, 1997. The King Sejong Station is located at high latitude geographically ($62.22^{\circ}S,\;301.25^{\circ}E$) but at mid latitude geomagnetically ($50.62^{\circ}S,\;7.51^{\circ}E$). It is therefore the strategic location to measure the temperatures of the thermosphere in the Southern Hemisphere associated with both solar and geomagnetic activities. In this study, we analyzed the observed temperatures inrelation to F10.7 and Kp indices to examine the effect of the solar and the geomagneticactivities on high-latitude neutral thermosphere. During the observing period, the solaractivity was at its minimum. The measured temperatures are usually in the range between about 600~1000 K with some seasonal variation and are higher than those predicted by semi-empirical model, VSH (Vector Spherical Harmonics) and empirical model, MSIS (Mass-Spectrometer-Incoherent-Scatter)-86.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.86.1-86.1
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• 2011

We are developing a new universal spectropolarimeter on the Domeless Solar Telescope (DST) at the Hida Observatory to realize precise spectropolarimetric observations in a wide range of wavelength in visible and near infrared. The system aims to open a new window of plasma diagnostics by using Zeeman effect, Hanle effect, Stark effect, impact polarization, and atomic polarization for measuring the external magnetic field, electric field, or an anisotropy in the excitation of the atoms. The polarimeter is a successor of formerly developed polarimeter on DST, which make possible to observe a polarization in a photospheric spectral line with polarimetric accuracy of 10-2 (Kiyohara et al. 2004). The new system consists of a 60cm aperture vacuum telescope, a high dispersion vacuum spectrograph, polarization modulator / analyzer composed of a rotating waveplate whose retardation is constant for a wide range of wavelength and Wallaston prism, and a fast and large format CCD camera or IR camera. Spectral images in both orthogonal polarizations are taken simultaneously with a frame rate of ~20Hz while the waveplate rotates continuously in a rate of 1rev./sec. Thus It takes 5 ~ 60 sec to observe polarization with accuracy of 10-3 in a wide wavelength range (400 - 1100nm). We also examined a polarimetric model of the telescope with accuracy of 10-3 to calibrate instrumental polarization on some wavelengths. In this talk, I will focus on the performance of the instrument.