Design of a rapid transit to Mars mission using laser-thermal propulsion

The application of directed energy to spacecraft mission design is explored using rapid transit to Mars as the design objective. An Earth-based laser array of unprecedented size (10-m diameter) and power (100 MW) is assumed to be enabled by ongoing developments in photonic laser technology. A phased-array laser of this size and incorporating atmospheric compensation would be able to deliver laser power to spacecraft in cislunar space, where the incident laser is focused into a hydrogen heating chamber via an inflatable reflector. The hydrogen propellant is then exhausted through a nozzle to realize specific impulses of 3000 s. The architecture is shown to be immediately reusable via a burn-back maneuver to return the propulsion unit while still within range of the Earth-based laser. The ability to tolerate much greater laser fluxes enables realizing the combination of high thrust and high specific impulse, making this approach favorable in comparison to laser-electric propulsion and occupying a parameter space similar to gas-core nuclear thermal rockets (without the requisite reactor). The heating chamber and its associated regenerative cooling and propellant handling systems are crucial elements of the design that receive special attention in this study. The astrodynamics and the extreme aerocapture maneuver required at Mars arrival after a 45-day transit are also analyzed in detail. The application of laser-thermal propulsion as an enabling technology for other rapid transit missions in the solar system and beyond is discussed.

Atmospheric Compensation of PRISMA Data by Means of a Learning Based Approach

Atmospheric compensation (AC) allows the retrieval of the reflectance from the measured at-sensor radiance and is a fundamental and critical task for the quantitative exploitation of hyperspectral data. Recently, a learning-based (LB) approach, named LBAC, has been proposed for the AC of airborne hyperspectral data in the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectral range. LBAC makes use of a parametric regression function whose parameters are learned by a strategy based on synthetic data that accounts for (1) a physics-based model for the radiative transfer, (2) the variability of the surface reflectance spectra, and (3) the effects of random noise and spectral miscalibration errors. In this work we extend LBAC with respect to two different aspects: (1) the platform for data acquisition and (2) the spectral range covered by the sensor. Particularly, we propose the extension of LBAC to spaceborne hyperspectral sensors operating in the VNIR and short-wave infrared (SWIR) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. We specifically refer to the sensor of the PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa) mission, and the recent Earth Observation mission of the Italian Space Agency that offers a great opportunity to improve the knowledge on the scientific and commercial applications of spaceborne hyperspectral data. In addition, we introduce a curve fitting-based procedure for the estimation of column water vapor content of the atmosphere that directly exploits the reflectance data provided by LBAC. Results obtained on four different PRISMA hyperspectral images are presented and discussed.

Novel Model-Based Approaches for Non-Homogenous Atmospheric Compensation of GB-InSAR in the Azimuth and Horizontal Directions

Atmospheric disturbance is a main interference for deformation monitoring by GB-InSAR. Most approaches for atmospheric correction are based on the homogenous atmospheric medium assumption that usually does not hold due to complex topography and various environmental factors, leading to low atmospheric correction accuracy. This study proposes two novel model-based approaches for non-homogenous atmospheric compensation in the azimuth and horizontal directions. The conception of a coordinate system is introduced to design the model for the first time. The 2D atmospheric compensation method designed based on the polar coordinate system can address the non-homogenous atmospheric phase screen (APS) correction in the azimuth direction. The 3D atmospheric compensation method based on the rectangular coordinate system deals with the non-homogenous APS in all three directions, and can better address the non-homogenous APS in the elevation direction than the 2D method. Compared with conventional models, the 2D and 3D models consider the other non-homogenous APS conditions in their respective coordinate systems, which helps to broaden the application of model-based approaches. Experiments using different equipment over two study areas are conducted to test the efficiency of the proposed models. The results demonstrate that the proposed approaches can eliminate non-homogenous atmospheric disturbance and enhance the accuracy of GB-InSAR atmospheric compensation, leading to great improvements in slope deformation estimation.

Influence of the daylight illumination a weather conditions on Airborne Thermal Infrared Hyperspectral geological mapping

<p>The use of airborne remote sensing techniques for geological mapping offers many benefits as it allows coverage of large areas in a very efficient way.  While hyperspectral imaging from airborne/spaceborne platforms is now a well-established method applied to resolve many geological problems, it has mostly been developed only in the Visible-Near Infrared (VNIR, 0.4–1.0 mm) and Shortwave Infrared (SWIR, 1.0–2.5 mm) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, the reflectance spectral features measured in the VNIR and SWIR spectral ranges are generally overtones and combination bands from fundamental absorption bands at longer wavelengths, such as in the Longwave Infrared (LWIR, 8–12 mm). The single absorption bands in the VNIR and SWIR spectral ranges are often very closely spaced so that the reflectance features measured by common spectrometers in this spectral region are typically broad and/or suffer from strong overlapping, which raises selectivity issues for mineral identification in some cases.</p><p>The inherent self-emission associated with LWIR under ambient conditions allows airborne mineral mapping in various weather (cloudy, partly cloudy or clear sky) and illumination (day or night) conditions. For this reason, LWIR often refers to the thermal infrared (TIR) spectral range. Solid targets such as minerals not only emit but also reflect TIR radiation. Since the two phenomena occur simultaneously, they end-up mixed in the radiance measured at the sensor level. The spectral features observed in a TIR spectrum of the sky and the atmosphere mostly correspond to ozone, water  vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide with pretty sharp and narrow features compared with the infrared signature of solid materials such as minerals. The sharp spectral features of atmospheric gases are mixed up with broad minerals features in the collected geological mapping data, to unveil the spectral features associated with minerals from TIR measurements, the respective contributions of self-emission and reflection in the measurement must be «unmixed» and the atmospheric contributions must be compensated. This procedure refers to temperature-emissivity separation (TES). Therefore, to achieve an efficient TES and atmospheric compensation, the collection time and conditions of LWIR airborne hyperspectral data is of importance. Data of a flight mission in Southern Spain collected systematically at different times of the day (morning, mid-day and night) and in different altitudes using the Telops Hyper-Cam airborne system, a passive TIR hyperspectral sensor based on Fourier transform spectroscopy, were analyzed. TES was carried out on the hyperspectral data using<strong> two</strong> different approaches: a) Telops Reveal FLAASH IR software and b) DIMAP In-scene atmospheric compensation algorithm in order to retrieve thermodynamic temperature map and spectral emissivity data. Spectral analysis of the emissivity data with different mineral mapping methods based on commercial spectral libraries was used to compare results obtained during the different flight times and altitudes using the two post-processing methodologies. The results are discussed in the light of optimizing LWIR-based airborne operations in time and altitude to achieve best results for routine field mineral mapping applications such as in mining, soil science or archaeology, where the spatial analysis of mineral and chemical distribution is essential</p>

DRONE DATA ATMOSPHERIC CORRECTION CONCEPT FOR MULTI- AND HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGERY – THE DROACOR MODEL

Remote sensing with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a fast and cost-efficient tool for mapping and environmental monitoring. The sensors are operated at low flight altitudes, usually below 500 m above ground, leading to spatial resolutions up to the centimeter range. This type of data causes new challenges in atmospheric compensation and surface reflectance retrieval. Based on these specific boundary conditions, a new drone based atmospheric correction concept (DROACOR) is proposed, which is designed for currently available UAV based sensors. It is suited for multispectral visible/near infrared sensors as well as hyperspectral instruments covering the 400–1000 nm spectral region or the 400–2500 nm spectrum. The goal of the development is a fully automatic processor which dynamically adjusts to the given instrument and the atmospheric conditions. Optionally, irradiance measurements from simultaneously measured cosine receptors or from in-field reference panels can be taken into account to improve the processing quality by adjusting the irradiance parameter or by performing an in-flight vicarious calibration. Examples of DROACOR processing results are presented for a multispectral image data set and a hyperspectral data set, both acquired at variable flight altitudes. The resulting spectra show the applicability of the methods for both sensor types and an accuracy level below 2.5% reflectance units.

STATUS OF THE IMAGING SPECTROSCOPY MISSION ENMAP WITH RADIOMETRIC CALIBRATION AND CORRECTION

The high-resolution imaging spectroscopy remote sensing mission EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program, enmap.org) covers the spectral range from 420 nm to 2450 nm with a spectral sampling distance varying between 4.8 nm and 12.0 nm comprising 262 spectral bands. We focus on the planned framework concerning radiometry. The expected signal-to-noise ratio at reference radiance level is 500:1 at 495 nm and 150:1 at 2200 nm. The radiometric resolution is 14 bits and an absolute radiometric accuracy of better than 5% is achieved. Radiometric calibration is based on Sun calibration measurements with a fullaperture diffusor for absolute calibration. In addition, relative calibration monitors the instrument during the complete mission lifetime based on an integrating sphere (on the satellite). The fully-automatic on-ground image processing chain considers the derived radiometric calibration coefficients in the radiometric correction which is followed by the orthorectification and atmospheric compensation. Each of the two 2-dimensional detector arrays of the prism-based pushbroom dual-spectrometer works in a dual-gain configuration to cover the complete dynamic range. EnMAP will acquire 30 km in the across-track direction with a ground sampling distance of 30 m and the across-track tilt capability of 30° will enable a target revisit time of less than 4 days. The launch is scheduled for 2021. The high-quality products will be freely available to international scientific users for measuring and analysing diagnostic parameters which describe vital processes on the Earth’s surface.