The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in partnership w~h Composite Optics Incorporated (COl), is advancing the development of low-cost, light-weight composite technology for use in small satellites. The use of advance composites in space applications is well-developed, but the application of an all-composite satellite bus has never been achieved. In this paper, we investigate the applicatio...

For a species to develop in nature basically two things are needed: an enabling technology and a “niche”. In spacecraft design the story is the same. Both a suitable technology and a niche application need to be there before a new generation of spacecraft can be developed. In the last century two technologies have emerged which had and still have a huge impact on the development of technical sy...

γ-ray bursts have baffled theorists ever since their accidental discovery at the sixties. We suggest that these bursts originate in merger of neutron star binaries, taking place at cosmological distances. These mergers release ≈ 10ergs, in what are possibly the strongest explosions in the Universe. If even a small fraction of this energy is channeled to an electromagnetic signal it will be dete...

I will discuss how time and frequency information can be distributed using satellites. I will focus on using the signals transmitted by the US global positioning system satellites, but I will also discuss other satellite-based systems such as the Russian GLONASS system, the proposed European Galileo System and two-way satellite time transfer, which uses active ground stations that communicate w...

of paper to be presented at OBHC Conference Oxford March 2002 Wednesday 20 March 2002

The Atmosphere and Climate Explorer Plus (ACE+) is an atmospheric sounding mission using radio occultation techniques. The mission is a response to ESA ́s 2nd Call for Earth Explorer Opportunity Missions in 2001 and was ranked no. 1 out of 25 candidate missions. ACE+ will considerably advance our knowledge about atmosphere physics and climate change processes. The mission will demonstrate a high...

The space robot is the indispensable tool for future space activities such as building and operation of the international space station, inspection and repair of orbiting satellites, and conducting lunar/planetary explorations. The rendezvous docking technology to meet and to connect two spacecraft in-orbit is also an essential technology for the future space missions such as logistic support o...

This paper describes the essential segments of a satellite based communication and asset management system. The Low Earth Orbit satellite used for such a system is the ORBCOMM low earth orbit (LEO) constellation. The architecture and network structure of the satellite system is described. The satellites themselves are very small and are launched using the Pegasus launch vehicle. This makes the ...

The Federal Aviation Administration has embarked on an historic task of modernizing and significantly improving the national air transportation system. One system that uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) to determine aircraft navigational information is called the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). This paper describes a reliability assessment of one candidate system architecture for th...

With a total of four new regional and global navigation satellite systems that have launched first satellites or even started an operational service, the GNSS landscape has experienced major changes in recent years. As part of the Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) of the International GNSS Service (IGS), a global network of multi-GNSS monitoring stations has been established and various analysis cen...