University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and EOS Spheres Space (EOS) 1-1-2005 EOS spheres, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (Fall 2005) University of New Hampshire. Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/spheres Recommended Citation University of New Hampshire. Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space, "EOS spheres, Vol. 4, Issue 3 (Fall 2005)" (2005). EOS Spheres. 12. https://scholars.unh.edu/spheres/12 This Text is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in EOS Spheres by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Spheres Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space • A University of New Hampshire Research Institute • Morse Hall, Durham, NH At 50, the Space Science at UNH is Golden with Projects Bobby “Rob” Braswell HEPS-ADIS: A New Slant on Ion Detection . page 4 AS A KID, had Jim Connell “I was trying to think out the math- been fascinated with, say, ematics of the advantage of inclined belts dinosaurs or baseball cards versus vertical belts, and that’s when it or stamp collecting, it’s likely occurred to me that the principle would his Angle Detecting Inclined apply just as much to space-based energy Sensor, ADIS for short, would detectors as it does to armor,” Connell never have seen the light of day says matter-of-factly. Thus was born Gauging the or fly – as it will in the future ADIS. He adds, “I walked back to my Gulf of – aboard the next-generation office very fast and started in on the Maine weather satellites of the National equations.” . page 5 Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System The elegance in Connell’s ponderings or NPOESS. involved relatively simple things like, “if you incline the armor then it’s the But the young Connell loved secant of the angle of inclination plus ships, and over time steeped Artist’s conception of an NPOESS the angle of incidence....” himself in maritime history. satellite. Image courtesy of NPOESS. Sizing up the Years later, while taking a head- This whole angle conundrum had Forest Soil clearing walk from his research at the Laboratory for been percolating for some time in Connell’s brain as he and . page 7 Astrophysics and Space Research in the Enrico Fermi Chicago colleague Bruce McKibben worked with data from Institute at the University of Chicago, he drew upon the Ulysses spacecraft, which carried their High Energy his avocation and came up with a novel, simple, and Telescope on board as it orbited the as-yet uncharted polar elegant solution to a space physics problem. regions of the Sun. “The last thing I was thinking about was physics,” The telescope, like many cosmic ray instruments on scientific recalls Connell, now an associate professor of space missions, uses what are called position sensing detectors physics at EOS and the Department of Physics. So (PSD) to differentiate between the different species of high- he thought about math instead, specifically about energy particles careening through space. Although highly accurate, a PSD is an electronically complex, power-hungry Fall 2005 the mathematics of inclined, battleship armor belts – the angled steel plates that protected ships from system that requires labor-intensive mathematical corrections Vol. 4 Issue 2 enemy shells. to extract useful data. – continued on page 2 Interstellar Boundary Explorer Mission Magnetospheric Multiscale IBEX: Mission With a Short Fuse Mission Moves Into Morse WHILE THE 28-YEAR-OLD Voyager 1 and 2 THE LAST TIME these pages reported on the Space spacecraft hurtle towards the edge of our solar Science Center’s role in NASA’s upcoming Magneto- system at 35,000 miles per hour, closer to home spheric Multiscale (MMS) science mission (see Winter Eberhard Möbius and his IBEX team are 2004 Spheres, “M(u)MS the Word”), two, separate racing in their own way to keep pace with the SSC teams were competing for a piece of the MMS pie veteran explorers. and neither Roy Torbert or Lynn Kistler – each who headed a team – wanted to say much of anything for “One of the biggest challenges here is that we fear of disclosing key information. have a program with such a short fuse, and we are banking on the mission’s synergism This cutout view shows IBEX (inset), the In May, the competition ended when the Torbert team termination shock (innermost blue), and the with Voyager,” Möbius says. heliopause, which separates the domain of the got the pie slice and, now, things have ramped up and – continued on page 3 sun from the interstellar medium. – continued on page3 Illustration courtesy of Southwest Research Institute. asdfghjk From the Director Milestones of Note for the EOS Spheres is published seasonally by the EOS Community Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire. THIS YEAR, EOS celebrates two significant flourish in We welcome comments and suggestions. milestones — the 20th anniversary of this spirit of Spheres Newsletter the establishment of the Institute for Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and adventure to Space (EOS) the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, high places. Morse Hall, Room 309 and the 50th year of achievements 39 College Road, Durham, NH 03824 Our graduate Tel: (603) 862-5369 in space science at the University of students, from their beginning moments www.eos.unh.edu New Hampshire. This latter “golden at EOS, share and often lead in the Director: Berrien Moore III anniversary” bears special note. excitement of publishing discoveries and Associate Director: David Bartlett receiving the applause of colleagues. Editor: David Sims Back in the 1950s, using the 6,288-foot Our faculty understands and accepts the Graphic Designer: Kristi Donahue elevation of Mount Washington, former Circulation: Clara Kustra and Laurie Lalish demands of stewardship of this tradition; Printed with soy inks on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, UNH-EOS professor Jack Lockwood and the lights burn long in Morse Hall on manufactured chlorine-free. his colleagues in the Physics Department Friday nights. began making measurements of cosmic Space Science radiation and publishing their findings From the high, long road atop Mount in scientific journals. That tradition of Washington to the very edges or our solar HEPS-ADIS: A New Slant on adventure and discovery is alive and system, from the depths of the Amazon Ion Detection continued from page 1 well today, and it is one of the reasons rain forest to the hydrothermal vents at that the university is consistently ranked the bottom of the ocean floor, the shared Says Connell, “I’d long been trying to figure out a among the top U.S. schools in National simpler way to get the data without using position sense of commitment to discovery flows Aeronautics and Space Administration sensing detectors. So this had been in the back of through the Institute. When there are funding. In addition, the university my mind for a very long time.” His eureka moment difficult passes to cross or cold streams garners high numbers in citations of brought it right to the fore. to forge, one knows that there will be published papers in the geosciences and willing hands to help carry the load. ADIS will now be the heart of an instrument environmental sciences. Over twenty years, we have grown called the High Energy Particle Sensor or HEPS tremendously, evolved with the changing The foundation of excellence and the that Connell and team are building under contract times, and have become a community commitment to seek and communicate from Ball Aerospace Technologies Corporation within the larger university community, new knowledge continues to challenge of Boulder, Colorado. Ball and within the even larger human and inspire all of us. Undergraduate will provide the Space community. Happy Anniversary. Environmental Sensor students working side by side with senior Suite for the NPOESS engineers building advanced hardware –Berrien Moore III spacecraft constructed by Northrop Grumman Space Technology. The UNH team will build two identical HEPS-ADIS of dollars, so there’s an obvious interest in service by gathering data of immediate use. An instruments at a cost of protecting them from these high-energy operational mission also often means there are a $8-plus million and deliver them in the 2010-11 events,” Connell says. HEPS, which unlike series of spacecraft built and launched over time timeframe. NPOESS will converge existing polar- most of the instruments on the NPOESS to be put into service as older satellites age or are orbiting satellite programs under a single, new satellites will be looking up into space damaged. This means there is the potential that national program. (For more information visit rather than down at the Earth, will provide Connell, his colleagues, and their students will www.npoess.noaa.gov). something of an early warning system and be building ADIS-based instruments well into allow satellites to be reconfigured or put in safe the future. HEPS is the very first operational Like battleship armor, the working ADIS will also modes in response to a big blast of radiation. mission for the Space Science Center. provide protection, but on a slightly smaller scale. In simple, elegant fashion, it will detect the heavy, Unlike the complex and math-heavy position “The emphasis on operational missions is fast-moving ions – hydrogen to nickel – that can sensing detectors, ADIS’s three, quarter-sized, continuity and reliability and, unlike science blow out space-based electronics with a direct hit, oval-shaped, inclined silicon detectors will missions, you don’t push the envelope,” Connell and which pose a danger to astronauts and aircraft instantaneously identify what species of ion says.