The Draper Technology Digest - Draper Laboratory

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Use of large numbers of small, high-performance platforms reaps thebenefits of economy of scale, while providing increased mission utilityin previously cost-prohibitive missions. Our unique analysis approachto match hosting opportunities to sponsor requirements enables rapidresponse to small space missions.Operational Global Climate Monitoring:A Critical Need That Small Space Can EnablePhilip HattisDraper Laboratory Technical StaffCoordinator of the 2010 Challenges and Solutions for Operational Global Climate Monitoring Conference held at Draper LaboratoryEarth’s climate is now experiencing major perturbations fromhistorical norms. The consequences can affect humans at bothindividual and global levels. Increased severity of storms,floods, and droughts devastates populations and crops inpoorly prepared areas. Reductions in hard freezes at highergeographic latitudes promote the spread of tropical diseases.In some parts of the world, these effects result in mass humanmigrations across borders, destabilizing already weak politicalinstitutions.Global Climate Monitoring (GCM) can facilitate preparationfor and timely response to climate change stresses; however,large, sophisticated orbital platforms that have been used todate to make observations aimed at better understanding theclimate and its change trends are going beyond their designlives, and they are failing faster than new observationalplatforms are being emplaced. The financial resources neededto build and sustain use of these observational platforms arealso adversely impacted by tightening budget constraints.New, small space capabilities can help to enable GCM to bemore comprehensive and more cost-effective.WHY CLIMATE MONITORING MATTERSLarge-scale Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and aerosols,as well as massive changes in land vegetation cover due tohuman activity, are altering many drivers of Earth’s climate.These changes impact global temperature profiles, cloud cover,polar-region ice cover, ocean conditions, storm tracks, andstorm intensities. Because of Earth’s complex climate systemdynamics, more frequent droughts and floods result from thesechanges in different parts of the world. Land ice meltdown inAntarctica and Greenland lead to sea level rise. In addition,the evolving transition of winter mountain precipitation fromsnow to rain is altering seasonal outflow water patterns onwhich much of the world’s agriculture depends.WHAT GCM MUST TRACKGCM is the process of observing environmental propertiesthat drive Earth’s climate system in order to distinguish cyclicalmeteorological phenomena from sustained change trends. Inaddition to observing the atmospheric state, GCM must alsomonitor the interaction of atmosphere and land conditions,surface ice conditions, as well as the state of the oceans. Importantatmospheric characteristics that impact climate include GHGlevels, temperature, cloud cover, and water vapor levels.Cloud cover impacts how much solar radiation reaches the Earth'ssurface and how much thermal radiation escapes to space, whilewater vapor is an important means for transport of absorbedsolar energy around the globe. Land properties impacting climateinclude vegetation cover and surface moisture levels. Vegetationaffects solar radiation absorption properties at Earth’s surfaceand global carbon dioxide (CO 2) uptake, while soil water contentcontributes to the amount of energy and moisture exchange withthe atmosphere through the water-to-vapor transition process.Surface ice volume affects sea level, and its area affects globalsolar radiation absorption. Ocean characteristics critical to climateinclude temperature, color, salinity, and acidity profiles. Oceantemperature reflects how much stored energy is in the oceanand how it will exchange heat as well as water vapor with theatmosphere. Ocean color impacts solar radiation absorption andhelps characterize biological activity, including conversion of CO 2to oxygen. Changes in ocean acidity can be a sign of altered levelsof dissolved CO 2coupled to increased atmospheric CO 2levels. Anoperational GCM system must enable sustained, frequent, andcomprehensive collection of data regarding all these phenomena.18 Operational Global Climate Monitoring: A Critical Need That Small Space Can Enable
HOW SMALL SPACE CAN ENABLEOPERATIONAL GCMOperational GCM must necessarily span Earth, but mustalso provide specific regional data that support local decisionmaking.A current challenge for orbital observations is thesparseness of data because of the dearth of generally largeobservational platforms that can take as long as weeks to repeatground tracks. Furthermore, most existing orbital platformsobserving important climate-driving properties were funded asone-of-a-kind, limited-life experiments with no plans in place totransition to a sustained observational capability. OperationalGCM will require that key climate parameters be monitoredglobally on a sustained basis with localized detail.Small Space allows a change in the paradigm for operationalGCM data collection using two approaches: Standardized small orbital buses can be produced in significantnumbers, providing services and interfaces to accommodateany one of a variety of small individual instrumentsor miniaturized sensor suites. (Note that some applicableinstruments and sensor suites have already been flighttested,while more exist in prototype form for many classes ofoperational GCM observations). These small orbitalplatforms can be carried either as secondary cargo on alreadyplanned launches or can be carried in clusters on small launchvehicles that can spread them out in an orbital plane ofinterest. By seeding each of several orbital planes with eachdesired class of instrument or miniaturized sensor suite,GCM observational coverage can become both truly globaland frequent at all localities. These attributes allow a smallnumber of ground stations the opportunity to collectrecorded data from many such satellites. Failure of anyindividual platform or sensor would have minor impactoverall on the completeness of the collected data set. Thesmall size of each platform, a greater tolerance for individualfailures, and sustained production of small satellites bythe dozen instead of as one-of-a-kind behemoths all provideopportunities for overall enterprise cost reduction. Limitedtotal required mass to orbit, emplaced using small launchersor secondary cargo space on already planned launches, alsooffers significant deployment cost savings. Small instruments or miniaturized sensor suites can beincorporated as secondary payloads onto larger, separatelyfunded orbital platforms serving other missions. Eachsatellite in the low-Earth orbit Iridium NEXTsatellite constellation has allocated a certain amount ofrentable payload space for this purpose, with powerand communication services already provided. Somecommunication satellites going to geosynchronous orbitnow also offer secondary payload space. Increased secondarypayload opportunities are likely to become available incoming years.GOING FORWARDAdvancing GCM to an operational capability is essential, but itmust be done affordably. Small space systems would allow classesof operational GCM capabilities to be emplaced incrementallyand cost effectively. To enable this, standardized, small satellitebuses should be developed that would support individual,operational GCM instruments or miniaturized sensor suitesin orbit. Applicable instruments and sensor suites that coveroperational GCM observational needs should be developed toa flight-ready maturity, accommodating use on individual smallsatellite platforms or as secondary payloads on larger platforms.Operational Global Climate Monitoring: A Critical Need That Small Space Can Enable19
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performance, and vendor quality iss
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RESULTSFigure 4 shows current volta
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Authors’ BiographiesJonathan J. B
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The 2011 EngineeringVice President
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Sharon G. Kujawa, Ph.D., is an Asso
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Jason FieringExcellence in Innovati
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Peter CastelliOutstanding Task Lead
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Michael ClohecyOutstanding Task Lea
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Rick StonerHoward Musoff Student Me
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Deutsch, O.L.; Antelman, E.T.; Peli
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Kniazeva, T.; Hsiao, J.C.; Charest,
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Smith, M.W.; Seager, S.; Pong, C.M.
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List of 2011 Patents IssuedBarrows,
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Ko, C.W.; Supervisors: Tao, S.; Liv
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