The Solar Wind Ion Composition Spectrometer (SWICS) and the Solar Wind Ions Mass Spectrometer (SW... more The Solar Wind Ion Composition Spectrometer (SWICS) and the Solar Wind Ions Mass Spectrometer (SWIMS) on ACE are instruments optimized for measurements of the chemical and isotopic composition of solar and interstellar matter. SWICS determines uniquely the chemical and ionic-charge composition of the solar wind, the thermal and mean speeds of all major solar wind ions from H through Fe at all solar wind speeds above 300 km s -1 (protons) and 170 km s -1 (Fe +16 ), and resolves H and He isotopes of both solar and interstellar sources. SWICS will measure the distribution functions of both the interstellar cloud and dust cloud pickup ions up to energies of 100 keV e -1 . SWIMS will measure the chemical, isotopic and charge state composition of the solar wind for every element between He and Ni. Each of the two instruments uses electrostatic analysis followed by a time-of-flight and, as required, an energy measurement. The observations made with SWICS and SWIMS will make valuable contributions to the ISTP objectives by providing information regarding the composition and energy distribution of matter entering the magnetosphere. In addition, SWICS and SWIMS results will have an impact on many areas of solar and heliospheric physics, in particular providing important and unique information on: (i) conditions and processes in the region of the corona where the solar wind is accelerated; (ii) the location of the source regions of the solar wind in the corona; (iii) coronal heating processes; (iv) the extent and causes of variations in the composition of the solar atmosphere; (v) plasma processes in the solar wind; (vi) the acceleration of particles in the solar wind; (vii) the physics of the pickup process of interstellar He in the solar wind; and (viii) the spatial distribution and characteristics of sources of neutral matter in the inner heliosphere.
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, 2010
When the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MES-SENGER) spacecraft en... more When the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MES-SENGER) spacecraft enters orbit about Mercury in March 2011 it will begin a new phase in an age-old scientific study of the innermost planet. Despite being visible to the unaided eye, Mercury's proximity to the Sun makes it extremely difficult to observe from Earth. Nonetheless, over the centuries man has pursued a quest to understand the elusive planet, and has teased out information about its motions in the sky, its relation to the other planets, and its physical characteristics. A great leap was made in our understanding of Mercury when the Mariner 10 spacecraft flew past it three times in the mid-1970s, providing a rich set of close-up observations. Now, three decades later, The MESSENGER spacecraft has also visited the planet three times, and is poised to add significantly to the study with a year-long orbital observation campaign.
SciBox is an end-to-end automated science planning and commanding system. Planning starts with sc... more SciBox is an end-to-end automated science planning and commanding system. Planning starts with science objectives expressed as algorithms, and ends with commands validated against resource constraints and health and safety rules, ready for uploading to a spacecraft. The process is largely automated, with user capabilities to edit the end sequence if needed. The immediate benefits of an automated system are improved operations efficiency and flexibility and reduction in operations cost through a reduction in manpower effort.
AIAA SPACE 2011 Conference & Exposition, Jun 14, 2011
MESSENGER SciBox is an automated closed-loop planning and commanding system used to optimize orbi... more MESSENGER SciBox is an automated closed-loop planning and commanding system used to optimize orbital science operations for the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission. The system plans all science observations for the seven science instruments on the spacecraft and also automatically generates the command sequences that drive the instruments, the guidance and control system, the solid-state recorder, the solar panels, and the radio-frequency communication system. MESSENGER SciBox interacts with the instrument scientists, mission operations team, downlink processing system, and mission design engineers to form a closed-loop system. In orbital operation, the systems employ a feedback loop, with a one-week time step, to improve the system performance. Feedback inputs are used to predict observational performance, to track all science observations, to avoid planning redundant tasks, and to recover from operational anomalies. The software tool is automated because the entire process, from ingesting the feedback inputs to creating the spacecraft and instruments commands, can function without manual interaction.
NASA's New Horizons mission flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015. In the months and weeks leading up ... more NASA's New Horizons mission flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015. In the months and weeks leading up to the encounter, over 200 mission personnel were located at JHU APL and directly involved in the planning and operations of the flyby. Several members of the team were given special permission to document photographically this historic event. These photos have been collected into a public archive which allows the general public to see the intimate and normally hidden 'behind the scenes' views of an operating spacecraft team, through times of elation, times of stress, public celebrations, and private moments. We present here a variety of these photos spanning May (the beginning of detailed hazards searches) through the end of July. The entire archive will be available online and accessible to the public. We thank JHU-APL for arranging special permission for the photographers (HBT, CCCT, JS, SJR, DC). All photos credit NASA/SwRI/JHUAPL and the individual photographers. … and the number 9 NH team members find features in the high-res global image at P-1 hour. The NH composition team sees their first spatially resolved Pluto spectrum
The NASA Solar Probe mission to the inner frontier of the heliosphere is a part of the Sun-Earth ... more The NASA Solar Probe mission to the inner frontier of the heliosphere is a part of the Sun-Earth Connection theme within the Office of Space Science. A NASA-appointed Science Definition Team has defined a Solar Probe mission and its scientific objectives. These include making measurements to understand the processes that heat the solar corona and produce the solar wind, subjects of continuing scientific debate. The Solar Probe mission will accomplish these objectives with a combination of in situ measurements designed to characterize the local heating and acceleration of plasma near the Sun and high resolution images to detect small-scale, transient magnetic structures at and around the Sun. In order to sample the solar corona acceleration region, Solar Probe will fly to four solar radii from the center of the Sun in an orbit inclined 90° to the plane of the ecliptic. Engineering solutions to design a probe that can withstand the near-Sun environment have been proposed for several decades. Current status of the Solar Probe concept is provided in this paper.
... and Space Administration, Washington, DC, USA 5 Institut für Datenverarbeitende Anlagen, Tech... more ... and Space Administration, Washington, DC, USA 5 Institut für Datenverarbeitende Anlagen, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany 6 Department of Physics, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA 7 Max-Planck-Institut für ...
Science Goals and Mission Architecture of the Europa Lander Mission Concept
The Planetary Science Journal, 2022
Europa is a premier target for advancing both planetary science and astrobiology, as well as for ... more Europa is a premier target for advancing both planetary science and astrobiology, as well as for opening a new window into the burgeoning field of comparative oceanography. The potentially habitable subsurface ocean of Europa may harbor life, and the globally young and comparatively thin ice shell of Europa may contain biosignatures that are readily accessible to a surface lander. Europa’s icy shell also offers the opportunity to study tectonics and geologic cycles across a range of mechanisms and compositions. Here we detail the goals and mission architecture of the Europa Lander mission concept, as developed from 2015 through 2020. The science was developed by the 2016 Europa Lander Science Definition Team (SDT), and the mission architecture was developed by the preproject engineering team, in close collaboration with the SDT. In 2017 and 2018, the mission concept passed its mission concept review and delta-mission concept review, respectively. Since that time, the preproject has ...
Investigating Martian History with the CRISM Imaging Spectrometer
Johns Hopkins Apl Technical Digest, 2006
The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) is the powerful, technically inn... more The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) is the powerful, technically innovative mineral-mapping camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The main objectives of the instrument are to map Mars' crustal composition and atmospheric processes, and to find and characterize past liquid water environments that might have provided a habitat for life. CRISM was designed, built, and tested at APL and is currently being operated from the CRISM Science Operations Center at the Laboratory. In Martian orbit, CRISM is mapping the global distribution of Mars' ices and minerals; measuring dust, ice, and trace gases in the atmosphere; and imaging several thousand key locations at high spatial and spectral resolution. First results are already changing our understanding of Martian history.
The major post-Cassini knowledge gap concerning Saturn’s icy moon Titan is in the composition of ... more The major post-Cassini knowledge gap concerning Saturn’s icy moon Titan is in the composition of its diverse surface, and in particular how far its rich organics may have ascended up the ”ladder of life.” The NASA New Frontiers 4 solicitation sought mission concepts addressing Titan’s habitability and methane cycle. A team led by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) proposed a revolutionary lander that uses rotors to land in Titan’s thick atmosphere and low gravity and can repeatedly transit to new sites, multiplying the mission’s science value from its capable instrument payload. Titan is an “ocean world” that is rich in both carbon and nitrogen.4,5 See Table 1 for data on Titan’s environment. FORMULATION OF THE DRAGONFLY CONCEPT The NASA community announcement in January 2016 identifying Titan as a possible target for the fourth New Frontiers mission opened new possibilities in Titan exploration (Box 1). Although the exploration of Titan’s seas had previou...
The NASA Solar Probe mission to the inner frontier of the heliosphere is a part of the Sun-Earth ... more The NASA Solar Probe mission to the inner frontier of the heliosphere is a part of the Sun-Earth Connection theme within the Office of Space Science. A NASA-appointed Science Definition Team has defined a Solar Probe mission and its scientific objectives. These include making measurements to understand the processes that heat the solar corona and produce the solar wind, subjects of continuing scientific debate. The Solar Probe mission will accomplish these objectives with a combination of in situ measurements designed to characterize the local heating and acceleration of plasma near the Sun and high resolution images to detect small-scale, transient magnetic structures at and around the Sun. In order to sample the solar corona acceleration region, Solar Probe will fly to four solar radii from the center of the Sun in an orbit inclined 90° to the plane of the ecliptic. Engineering solutions to design a probe that can withstand the near-Sun environment have been proposed for several decades. Current status of the Solar Probe concept is provided in this paper.
MESSENGER's Second Extended Mission: Exploring Mercury's Dynamic Magnetosphere and Complex Surface at Unprecedented Scales
MESSENGER’s second extended mission will begin in March 2013. Unprecedented observations are plan... more MESSENGER’s second extended mission will begin in March 2013. Unprecedented observations are planned of Mercury’s surface, dynamic magnetosphere, and exosphere.
CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars) is a hyperspectral imager that will ... more CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars) is a hyperspectral imager that will be launched on the MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) spacecraft in August 2005. MRO"s objectives are to recover climate science originally to have been conducted on the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO), to identify and characterize sites of possible aqueous activity to which future landed missions may be sent, and to characterize the composition, geology, and stratigraphy of Martian surface deposits. MRO will operate from a sun-synchronous, near-circular (255x320 km altitude), near-polar orbit with a mean local solar time of 3 PM. CRISM"s spectral range spans the ultraviolet (UV) to the mid-wave infrared (MWIR), 383 nm to 3960 nm. The instrument utilizes a Ritchey-Chretien telescope with a 2.12° field-of-view (FOV) to focus light on the entrance slit of a dual spectrometer. Within the spectrometer, light is split by a dichroic into VNIR (visible-near-infrared, 383-1071 nm) and IR (in...
The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) space-craft, develo... more The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) space-craft, developed under NASA's Discovery Program, is the first space probe to visit the planet Mercury in more than 30 years. MESSENGER flew by the innermost planet twice in 2008 and once last fall. The flybys confirmed that Mercury's internal magnetic field is dominantly dipolar, with a vector moment closely aligned
MESSENGER's three Mercury flybys revealed a planet with a rich geological history and strong ... more MESSENGER's three Mercury flybys revealed a planet with a rich geological history and strong interactions among the solar wind, magnetosphere, exosphere, and surface. MESSENGER's year-long orbital operations are scheduled to commence this month.
The Solar Wind Ion Composition Spectrometer (SWICS) and the Solar Wind Ions Mass Spectrometer (SW... more The Solar Wind Ion Composition Spectrometer (SWICS) and the Solar Wind Ions Mass Spectrometer (SWIMS) on ACE are instruments optimized for measurements of the chemical and isotopic composition of solar and interstellar matter. SWICS determines uniquely the chemical and ionic-charge composition of the solar wind, the thermal and mean speeds of all major solar wind ions from H through Fe at all solar wind speeds above 300 km s -1 (protons) and 170 km s -1 (Fe +16 ), and resolves H and He isotopes of both solar and interstellar sources. SWICS will measure the distribution functions of both the interstellar cloud and dust cloud pickup ions up to energies of 100 keV e -1 . SWIMS will measure the chemical, isotopic and charge state composition of the solar wind for every element between He and Ni. Each of the two instruments uses electrostatic analysis followed by a time-of-flight and, as required, an energy measurement. The observations made with SWICS and SWIMS will make valuable contributions to the ISTP objectives by providing information regarding the composition and energy distribution of matter entering the magnetosphere. In addition, SWICS and SWIMS results will have an impact on many areas of solar and heliospheric physics, in particular providing important and unique information on: (i) conditions and processes in the region of the corona where the solar wind is accelerated; (ii) the location of the source regions of the solar wind in the corona; (iii) coronal heating processes; (iv) the extent and causes of variations in the composition of the solar atmosphere; (v) plasma processes in the solar wind; (vi) the acceleration of particles in the solar wind; (vii) the physics of the pickup process of interstellar He in the solar wind; and (viii) the spatial distribution and characteristics of sources of neutral matter in the inner heliosphere.
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Papers by Peter Bedini