SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL AEROSPACE REPORTS

A Biweekly Publication of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
VOLUME 44, ISSUE 14 - JULY 18, 2006

19 SPACECRAFT INSTRUMENTATION AND ASTRIONICS
Includes the design, manufacture, or use of devices for the purpose of measuring, detecting, controlling, computing, recording, or processing data related to the operation of space vehicles or platforms.

For related information see also 06 Avionics and Aircraft Instrumentation; for spaceborne instruments not integral to the vehicle itself see 35 Instrumentation and Photography; for spaceborne telescopes and other astronomical instruments see 89 Astronomy.

20060020062 NASA Goddard Inst. for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA

The Mercury Laser Altimeter Instrument for the MESSENGER Mission

Cavanaugh, John F.; Smith, James C.; Sun, Xiaoli; Bartels, Arlin E.; Ramos-Izquierdo, Luis; Krebs, Danny J.; Novo-Gradac, Anne marie; McGarry, Jan F.; Trunzo, Raymond; Britt, Jamie L., et al.; [2006]; 31 pp.; In English; Original contains black and white illustrations; Copyright; Avail.: CASI: A03, Hardcopy

The Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) is one of the payload science instruments on the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission, which launched on 3 August 2004. The altimeter will measure the round trip time-of-flight of transmitted laser pulses reflected from the surface of the planet that, in combination with the spacecraft orbit position and pointing data, gives a high-precision measurement of surface topography referenced to Mercury's center of mass. The altimeter measurements will be used to determine the planet's forced librations by tracking the motion of large-scale topographic features as a function of time. MLA's laser pulse energy monitor and the echo pulse energy estimate will provide an active measurement of the surface reflectivity at 1064 nm. This paper describes the instrument design, prelaunch testing, calibration, and results of post-launch testing. Author

Laser Altimeters; Messenger (Spacecraft); Mercury Surface; Geochemistry; Planetary Surfaces; Spacecraft Orbits

20060020982 NAVSYS Corp., Colorado Springs, CO USA

Near Real-Time Dissemination of Geo-Referenced Imagery by an Enterprise Server

Brown, Alison; Gilbert, Chris; Holland, Heather; Lu, Yan; Jun 2006; 15 pp.; In English; Original contains color illustrations Report No.(s): AD-A447291; No Copyright; Avail.: CASI: A03, Hardcopy

NAVSYS has designed a GPS/inertial/video sensor (GI-Eye) that provides precision georegistration data of collected imagery directly at the sensor. This has been packaged into an Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) payload that generates precision mensurated imagery directly on the aircraft. The payload is connected through a data link to a ground-based server that can process the georegistered data in near-real-time using our GeoReferenced Information Manager (GRIM) Enterprise Server. The GRIM Enterprise Server consists of a spatial database integrated with sophisticated search tools that allow for search and retrieval of sensor images that cover a common coordinate or a common point in a particular sensor image. These images can also be processed in near real-time to generate an automatic mosaic as the aircraft flies. This is produced in a format that Location Servers could access providing a near real-time Web view over the area covered by the aircraft using existing Web tools. In this paper, we describe the design of the GI-Eye sensor and GRIM Enterprise Server and present a demonstration of the type of imagery products that they can produce. We also describe a concept of operations for this technology. DTIC

Global Positioning System; Imagery; Inertial Navigation; Real Time Operation

Source: NASA