Recent  

Motivated by recent community interest in a satellite mission to the atmospheric LTI region between 100 km and 200 km altitude, the DIPCont project is concerned with vertical profiles of key LTI variables and their reconstruction from dual-spacecraft and single-spacecraft observations. Considering a novel non-isothermal scenario, the report presents a set of self-consistent parametric models, introduces the probabilistic DIPCont modeling framework, and discusses first results.

This project aims to demonstrate the viability of the development of a concept prototype that has, as a differential, free software and hardware used in its development and operation, and thus, has unique characteristics compared with commercially available equipment for signal detection was employed, providing strong rejection of spurious electrical noise, typical of urban areas. This project and important academic contribution to open-source instrumental research.

Important topics in Land-Atmosphere feedback research are water and energy balances and heterogeneities of fluxes at the land-surface and in the atmosphere. To target these questions, the Land-Atmosphere Feedback Observatory (LAFO) has been installed in Germany. The instrumentation allows comprehensive measurements from the bedrock to the troposphere. The LAFO observation strategy aims for simultaneous measurements in all three compartments: atmosphere, soil and land-surface and vegetation.

Accurate monitoring of water in soil can improve irrigation efficiency, which is important considering climate change and the growing world population. Cosmic-ray neutrons sensors (CRNS) are a promising tool in irrigation monitoring due to a larger sensed area and to lower maintenance than other point-scale sensors. Here, we analyse the feasibility of irrigation monitoring with CRNS and the impact of the irrigated field dimensions, of the variations of water in soil, and of instrument design.

The manuscript describes the ground-based camera equipment to obtain images from the dust ablation phenomena (meteors) in the Earth atmosphere. The meteors are observed from two locations , but one station is equipped with a camera containing a spectral grating which allows to follow and determine the spectral information through the meteor ablation process. We describe the data merging, calibration, and processing to finally derive to the meteor composition.

Magnetic field measurements in space can be contaminated by stray magnetic fields from their host satellite. We present an automated tool for measuring the magnetic field generated by potential satellite and instrument components to identify those that may degrade the measurements taken on-orbit. This tool is designed for use by the Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (TRACERS) Small Explorers mission and is currently being used for mission design activities.

This paper outlines the development of a color filter wheel, attached to a broadband CL detector, which allows us to recover spectroscopic information and generate composite color images. The embedded data from the pixels were used to generate 2D and 3D graphs providing multiple visual pathways for comparing relative intensities. The design can be adjusted to accommodate various chamber specifications and expand the capabilities of the broadband CL detectors housed at many institutions.

In most cases, the Soil Water Content measurement is carried out using commercially available dielectric permittivity-based probes such as Time Domain Reflectometers or Frequency Domains Reflectometers. However, these probes use transfer functions which may be inadequate in the concerned soil. Raw SWC measurement in clayey soil shows an important relative error. A simple protocol is presented which allows for recovery of an acceptable accuracy of the FDR SWC measurements.

Potential users of all sky camera images include even power company, tourists and aurora enthusiast. However, these potential users are normally not familiar to interpreting these images. To make them comprehensive for wide users, we developed an automatic evaluation system of the auroral activity level. The method involves two steps: first making a simple set of numbers that describes the auroral activity, and then further simplifying them into several levels (Level 6 is aurora explosion).

The design, characteristics, and performance of a CubeSat magnetometer board (Quad-Mag) equipped with four PNI RM3100 magnetometers is presented. The inclusion of four sensors allows a potential factor of two reduction in the noise floor established for an individual sensor via oversampling with multiple sensors. The Quad-Mag is shown to enable 1 nT magnetic field measurements at 1 Hz and 5.345 nT at 65 Hz using commercial-off-the-shelf sensors for space applications.