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“SPICE is uniquely suited to fill a
critical gap in our understanding of the
basic conditions near the Sun and how
these conditions affect the solar wind
An imaging coronal spectrograph
and the space environment near Earth,”
called SPICE (Spectral Imaging of the
said Dr. Don Hassler, SPICE principal
Coronal Environment), designed by
Brief notes about the
investigator and program director in the
scientists and engineers at Southwest
world of science and
Boulder office of SwRI’s Space Science
Research Institute (SwRI), has been
technology at Southwest
and Engineering Division. selected by the European Space Agency
The SPICE investigation is part
(ESA) and NASA for ESA’s Solar Orbiter
Research Institute
of NASA’s Living with a Star Program,
mission to explore the innermost
which is designed to understand how
regions of the solar system from the
and why the Sun varies, how planetary
closest distances to the Sun ever
systems respond and the effects on human space and
attempted. Solar Orbiter will be positioned at a unique vantage point,
Earth activities. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
about one-fourth the distance of the Earth from the Sun.
manages the program for the agency’s Heliophysics
The SPICE instrument is one of 10 selected to fly aboard the joint ESA/
Division of the Science Mission Directorate.
NASA Solar Orbiter mission. SPICE will remotely measure different wave“One of the greatest threats to human space
lengths of light emitted
exploration is the sudden, unpredictable occurrence of
from the Sun to evaluate
radiation outbursts from the Sun,” said Hassler. “Even
the plasma properties and
satellites and power grids on and around Earth are at
composition of the solar
risk. By improving our understanding of the dynamics
atmosphere using unpreceof the Sun, SPICE will help develop the capability for
dented spatial and spectral
forecasting and predicting solar conditions that could
resolution. The data will
affect space travelers as well as life here on Earth.”
advance our knowledge of
SwRI is leading the development of SPICE, in colthe Sun’s dynamics to betlaboration with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
ter understand the
(Greenbelt, Md.), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
effects on Earth and the so(United Kingdom), Max Planck Institute (Germany),
lar system. SPICE is expectInstitut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (France) and Institute
ed to help understand the
for Theoretical Physics (Norway). The Solar Orbiter
connection between in-situ
spacecraft is currently scheduled for launch in 2017.
measurements of the solar
wind and its source regions
Contact Hassler at (303) 546-9670 or donald.hassler@
near the Sun.
D017022
swri.org.
Joint ESA/NASA mission to use SPICE to
explore Solar System’s center
Technics
New instrument has potential to detect water deep underground on Mars
With the whoosh of compressed gas and the whir of unspooling wire, a team of Boulder
scientists and engineers tested a new instrument prototype that might be used to detect
groundwater deep inside Mars.
The Mars Time Domain Electromagnetic Sounder (MTDEM) uses induction to generate
electrical currents in the ground, whose secondary magnetic fields are in turn detected at the
planetary surface. In this way, the electrical conductivity of the subsurface can be reconstructed.
“Groundwater that has been out of atmospheric circulation for eons will be very salty,”
said the project’s principal investigator Dr. Robert Grimm, a director in the Space Science and
Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute. “It is a near-ideal exploration target for
inductive systems.”
The time-domain inductive method uses a large, flat-lying loop of wire on the ground
to generate and receive electromagnetic signals. In order to do this robotically, the team
developed a launch system that shoots two projectiles, each paying out spooled wire as they
fly. A system deploying a 200-meter loop would be less than 6 kilograms mass and could detect
groundwater at depths up to 5 kilometers (3 miles). Most of the instrument’s mass would be in
the loop and deployment system.
Grimm said, “Subsurface, liquid water on Mars could be a habitable zone for microbes. We
know that huge volumes of discharged groundwater have shaped Mars’ ancient surface. Is that
water still locked inside?”
The article “A time domain electromagnetic sounder for detection and characterization
of groundwater on Mars” was published in Planetary and Space Science. The MTDEM
development was funded by NASA.
Contact Grimm at (720) 240-0149 or [email protected].
Technology Today • Summer 2009
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Technics
IBEX spacecraft detects fast neutral hydrogen coming from the Moon
D017023
NASA’s Interstellar Boundary
Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft has
made the first observations of
very fast hydrogen atoms coming
from the moon, following decades
of speculation and searching for
their existence.
During spacecraft
commissioning, the IBEX team
turned on the IBEX-Hi instrument,
built primarily by Southwest
Research Institute (SwRI) and the
Los Alamos National Laboratory,
which measures atoms with
speeds from about half a million
to 2.5 million miles per hour.
Its companion sensor, IBEX-Lo,
built by Lockheed Martin, the
University of New Hampshire,
NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center and the University of Bern
in Switzerland, measures atoms
with speeds from about one hundred thousand to 1.5 million mph.
“Just after we got IBEX-Hi turned on, the moon happened to pass right through
its field of view, and there they were,” said Dr. David J. McComas, IBEX principal
investigator and assistant vice president of the SwRI Space Science and Engineering
Division. “The instrument lit up with a clear signal of the neutral atoms being
detected as they backscattered from the moon.”
The solar wind, the supersonic stream of charged particles that flows out from
the Sun, moves out into space in every direction at speeds of about a million mph.
The Earth’s strong magnetic field shields our planet from the solar wind. The Moon,
with its relatively weak magnetic field, has no such protection, causing the solar
wind to slam onto the moon’s sunward side.
The IBEX team estimates that only about 10 percent of the solar wind ions
reflect off the sunward side of the moon as neutral atoms, while the remaining
90 percent are embedded in the lunar surface. Characteristics of the lunar surface,
such as dust, craters and rocks, play a role in determining the percentage of
particles that become embedded and the percentage of neutral particles, as well as
their direction of travel, that scatter.
The combined scattering and neutralization processes now observed at the
moon have implications for interactions with objects across the solar system, such
as asteroids, Kuiper Belt objects and other moons. The plasma-surface interactions
occurring within protostellar nebula, the region of space that forms around planets
and stars – as well as exoplanets, planets around other stars – also can be inferred.
IBEX’s primary mission is to observe and map the complex interactions
occurring at the edge of the solar system, where the million-miles-per-hour solar
wind runs into the interstellar material from the rest of the galaxy. The spacecraft
carries the most sensitive neutral atom detectors ever flown in space, enabling
researchers not only to measure particle energy, but also to make precise images of
where they are coming from.
IBEX is the latest in NASA’s series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small
Explorers spacecraft. The IBEX mission was developed by SwRI with a national and
international team of partners. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the
Explorers Program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
Contact McComas at (210) 522-5983 or [email protected].
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Technology Today • Summer 2009
Data fusion tool helps fight crime,
terror attacks
Hydra, a prototype intelligence
gathering tool developed by Southwest
Research Institute (SwRI) software
engineers, combines data from multiple
sources to help military or law enforcement officials identify and react to
potential threats.
The patent-pending system gathers
data from sources such as intelligence
field reports, phone records, law
enforcement reports, web page entries,
news articles, and intelligence databases
and combines them with known information about facilities and national
infrastructure using integrated
simulation, analysis and data fusion
technologies.
“This tool is designed to aid in identifying potential terror threats using as
much data as possible and allowing a
human operator to specify the conditions that constitute a potential threat,”
said Peter D. Hottenstein, Manager of
the Systems Modeling Section within
SwRI’s Training, Simulation and Performance Improvement Division.
“The system then compares incoming data against the specified criteria.
The approach applies directly to the
National Infrastructure Protection Plan
specified by the Department of Homeland Security, but it could also be used
by the military to support foreign operations,” Hottenstein said. He added that
other potential applications include
industrial facility security operations.
Threats are presented as warnings
or alerts and automatic map movements
provide analysts with immediate feedback as to location, threat content and
other information. Threat definitions can
be developed, stored and managed in
libraries for a wide range of data
fusion analyses, ranging from generalized screening techniques to specific
target threats.
Hydra was developed under the
SwRI internal research and development
program, which broadens the Institute’s
technology base and allows engineers
and scientists to explore innovative
concepts.
Contact Hottenstein at (210) 522-3731 or
[email protected].