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ASSURE 2018 has successfully concluded.

UPDATES

• New! 2018-07-30: The ASSURE 2018 program has been announced. The final program is contingent on registration. If you haven’t already done so, please register for ASSURE 2018 via SAFECOMP 2018.
• 2018-06-21: ASSURE 2018 will be held on Tuesday, Sep. 18, 2018. The accepted papers and program will be posted here soon.
• 2018-06-12: Authors of accepted papers have been notified. The final, camera-ready version and a signed copyright release form are due on June 21, 2018. Instructions on submitting both the final version and the copyright form also have been posted.
• 2018-05-30: Paper submission deadlines have passed. Submission is now closed.
• 2018-05-18: ASSURE deadlines have been extended by a week, to May 29, 2018.
• 2018-04-09: The deadline to submit papers to ASSURE 2018 is May 22, 2018. Submit a paper now!
• 2018-03-28: See the call for papers or download the PDF call for papers.
• 2018-03-26: The ASSURE 2018 website is live!

Introduction

The 6th International Workshop on Assurance Cases for Software-intensive Systems (ASSURE 2018) is being collocated this year with SAFECOMP 2018, and aims to provide an international forum for high-quality contributions on the application of assurance case principles and techniques to provide assurance that the dependability properties of critical, software-intensive systems have been met.

The main goals of the workshop are to:

• Explore techniques for the creation and assessment of assurance cases for software-intensive systems
• Examine the role of assurance cases in the engineering lifecycle of critical systems
• Identify the dimension of effective practice in the development and evaluation of assurance cases
• Investigate the relationship between dependability techniques and assurance cases
• Identify critical research challenges and define a roadmap for future development

We invite original, high-quality research, practice, tools and position papers that have not been published/submitted elsewhere. See the full Call for Papers, for more details on topics. Also view the submission deadlines, and guidelines.

Program

September 18, 2017, from 08:00 – 17:30

08:00 – 09:00 Registration

09:00 – 11:00 Session 1. Welcome, Introduction, Keynote and Confidence Assessment

09:00 – 09:05 Welcome and Introduction, ASSURE 2018 Organizers

09:05 – 10:00 Keynote Talk. Assurance Cases: Mindsets, Methodologies and Convergence, Robin Bloomfield

10:00 – 10:30 Research on the Classification of the Relationships Among the Same Layer Elements in Assurance Case Structure for Evaluation, B. Xu, M. Lu, T. Gu, and D. Zhang

10:30 – 11:00 Morning Coffee/Tea Break

11:00 – 12:30 Session 2. Patterns and Processes

11:00 – 11:30 The Assurance Recipe: Facilitating Assurance Patterns, J. Firestone and M. Cohen

11:30 – 12:00 Incorporating Attacks Modeling into Safety Process, A. Surkovic, D. Hanic, E. Lisova, A. Causevic, K. Lundqvist, D. Wenslandt, and C. Falk

12:00 – 12:30 Assurance Case Considerations for Interoperable Medical Systems, Y. Zhang, B. Larson, and J. Hatcliff

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch Break

13:30 – 15:30 Session 3. Tools and Automation

13:30 – 14:00 Two Decades of Assurance Case Tools: A Survey, M. Maksimov, N. Fung, S. Kokaly, and M. Chechik

14:00 – 14:30 MMINT–A: A Tool for Automated Change Impact Assessment on Assurance Cases, N. Fung, S. Kokaly, A. Di Sandro, R. Salay, and M. Chechik

14:30 – 15:00 D–Case Steps: New Steps for Writing Assurance Cases, Y. Onuma, T. Takai, T. Koshiyama, and Y. Matsuno

15:00 – 15:30 Continuous Argument Engineering: Tackling Uncertainty in Machine Learning based Systems,
F. Ishikawa, and Y. Matsuno

15:30 – 16:00 Afternoon Coffee/Tea Break

16:00 – 17:20 Session 4. Panel Session. What are Assurance Case Tools For?

17:20 – 17:30 ASSURE 2018 Conclusion and Wrap-Up

Important Dates EVENTDEADLINEWorkshop Papers Due29 May 2018Notification of Acceptance11 June 2018Camera-ready Copies Due21 June 2018ASSURE 2018 WorkshopSeptember 18, 2018SAFECOMP 2018September 19 – 21, 2018

Call for Papers

Software plays a key role in high-risk systems, e.g., safety-, and security-critical systems. Several certification standards/guidelines now recommend and/or mandate the development of assurance cases for software-intensive systems, e.g., defense (UK MoD DS-0056), aviation (CAP 670, FAA’s operational approval guidance for unmanned aircraft systems), automotive (ISO 26262), and healthcare (FDA infusion pumps total product lifecycle guidance). As such, there is a need to develop models, techniques and tools that target the development of assurance arguments for software.

The goals of the 2018 Workshop on Assurance Cases for Software-intensive Systems (ASSURE 2018) are to:

• explore techniques for creating/assessing assurance cases for software-intensive systems;
• examine the role of assurance cases in the engineering lifecycle of critical systems;
• identify the dimensions of effective practice in the development and evaluation of assurance cases;
• investigate the relationship between dependability techniques and assurance cases; and,
• identify critical research challenges and define a roadmap for future development.

We solicit high-quality contributions: research, practice, tools and position papers on the application of assurance case principles and techniques to assure that the dependability properties of critical software-intensive systems have been met.

Papers should attempt to address the workshop goals in general.

Topics

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Assurance issues in emerging paradigms, e.g., adaptive and autonomous systems, including self-driving cars, unmanned aircraft systems, complex health care and decision making systems, etc.
• Standards: Industry guidelines and standards are increasingly requiring the development of assurance cases, e.g., the automotive standard ISO 26262 and the FDA guidance on the total product lifecycle for infusion pumps.
• Certification and Regulations: The role and usage of assurance cases in the certification of critical systems, as well as to show compliance to regulations.
• Empiricism: Empirical assessment of the applicability of assurance cases in different domains and certification regimes.
• Dependable architectures: How do fault-tolerant architectures and design measures such as diversity and partitioning relate to assurance cases?
• Dependability analysis: What are the relationships between dependability analysis techniques and the assurance case paradigm?
• Safety and security co-engineering: What are the impacts of security on safety, particularly safety cases, and how can safety and security cases (e.g., as proposed in ISO 26262 and SAE J 3061 respectively) be reconciled?
• Tools: Using the output from software engineering tools (testing, formal verification, code generators) as evidence in assurance cases / using tools for the modeling, analysis and management of assurance cases.
• Application of formal techniques for the creation, analysis, reuse, and modularization of arguments.
• Exploration of relevant techniques for assurance cases for real-time, concurrent, and distributed systems.
• Assurance of software quality attributes, e.g., safety, security and maintainability, as well as dependability in general, including tradeoffs, and exploring notions of the quality of assurance cases themselves.
• Domain-specific assurance issues, in domains such as aerospace, automotive, healthcare, defense and power.
• Reuse and Modularization: Contracts and patterns for improving the reuse of assurance case structures.
• Relations between different formalisms and paradigms of assurance and argumentation, such as Goal Structuring Notation, STAMP, IBIS, and goal-oriented formalisms such as KAOS.

Submit

Submission Instructions for Accepted Papers

If your paper has been accepted for the ASSURE 2018 Program, please follow ALL the instructions below, when preparing your final, camera-ready paper for the proceedings.

Deadline

The final paper and the signed copyright form are due on June 21, 2018. This is a firm deadline for the production of the proceedings.

Acknowledgements

Include acknowledgements of the support your work/project has received, as appropriate and if applicable, at the end of the paper.

Final Paper Submission

Submit your final, camera-ready paper using your EasyChair author account, for inclusion into the Workshop Proceedings. After you have logged in, select the Proceedings Author role to be directed to the submission page. Springer reserves the right to reformat your paper to meet their print and digital publication requirements. Consequently, you will need to submit all the source files associated with your paper. Follow the instructions after logging in, to upload two files:

1. either a zipped file containing all your LaTeX sources or a Word file in the RTF format, and
2. a PDF version of your camera-ready paper.

Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and publication in multiple venues are not permitted.

Copyright Release

Your paper will not be published in the proceedings unless a completed and signed copyright transfer form has been received.

• Authors must fill and sign the Springer “Consent to Publish” copyright release form using the following information:
  • Title of the Book or Conference Name: Computer Safety, Reliability and Security – SAFECOMP 2018 Workshops – ASSURE, DECSoS, SASSUR, STRIVE, and WAISE.
  • Volume Editor(s): Barbara Gallina, Amund Skavhaug, Erwin Schoitsch, and Friedemann Bitsch.
• One author may sign on behalf of all authors.
• Springer does not accept digital signatures. Please physically sign the form, scan, and email it in PDF or any standard acceptable image format, to the SAFECOMP 2018 Publication Chair by the deadline above.
• Alternatively, upload the signed, and completed form via EasyChair using your author account.

Corresponding Authors

Please nominate a corresponding author, whose name and email address must be included in the copyright release form. If sending the copyright release form by email, please include the corresponding author’s name and email address in the email. This author will be responsible for checking the pre-print proof of the final version of your paper that Springer will prepare.

Pre-print Checking

The publisher has recently introduced an extra control loop: once data processing is finished, they will contact all corresponding authors and ask them to check their papers within 72 hours. We expect this to happen shortly before the printing of the proceedings. At that time your quick interaction with Springer-Verlag will be greatly appreciated.

Formatting and Page Limits

Papers should strictly conform to the LNCS paper formatting guidelines. Please do not change the spacing and dimensions associated with the paper template files. Please ensure that your paper meets the page limits for your paper type. Page limits are strict.

• Regular research/practice papers: Up to 10 pages including figures, references, and appendices.
• Tools papers: Up to 10 pages, including figures, references, and appendices.
• Position papers: 6 pages including figures, references, and any appendices.

Committees

Workshop Chairs

• Ewen Denney, SGT / NASA Ames, USA
• Ibrahim Habli, University of York, UK
• Richard Hawkins ,University of York, UK
• Ganesh, Pai, SGT / NASA Ames, USA

Program Committee

• Simon Burton, Bosch Research, Germany
• Isabelle Conway, ESA/ESTEC, Netherlands
• Martin Feather, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA
• Alwyn Goodloe, NASA Langley Research Center, USA
• Jérémie Guiochet, LAAS-CNRS, France
• Joshua Kaizer, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, USA
• Tim Kelly, University of York, UK
• Yoshiki Kinoshita, Kanagawa University, Japan
• Andrew Rae, Griffith University, Australia
• Philippa Ryan, Adelard, UK
• Mark-Alexander Sujan, University of Warwick, UK
• Kenji Taguchi, CAV Technologies Co. Ltd., Japan
• Sean White, NHS Digital, UK

Past Workshops

Previous ASSURE Workshops

• ASSURE 2017, Trento, Italy
• ASSURE 2016, Trondheim, Norway
• ASSURE 2015, Delft, The Netherlands
• ASSURE 2014, Naples, Italy
• ASSURE 2013, San Francisco, USA

Contact Us

Contact the Organizers

If you have questions about paper topics, submission and/or about ASSURE 2018 in general, please contact the Workshop Organizers.

Boeing's troubled Starliner capsule is poised to return to Earth without any crew aboard on Sept. 6, NASA announced on Thursday (Aug. 29).

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has fascinated us for decades. Now a team of researchers have used the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia to scan great swathes of sky for alien signals. Unusually for a SETI project, this one focussed attention on 2,800 galaxies instead of stars within our own. They have been on the lookout for advanced civilisations that are broadcasting their existence using the power of an entire star. Alas they weren’t successful but its an exciting new way to search for alien intelligence. 

Our first attempts to search for alien intelligence began back in 1960 with Project Ozma. It was led by astronomer Frank Drake and used the 85 foot radio telescope at Green Bank in West Virginia. The aim was to try and detect alien radio signals from Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti, should they have existed. Alas they found nothing but it marked the first step in a scientific approach to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Typically SETI tends to focus on electromagnetic signals such as radio waves an in particular unusual patterns that could suggest intentional communication. 

Radio telescopes monitor the sky at the Allen Telescope Array in California. Finding a signal from a distant civilization is one way we could experience first contact with ET. (SETI Institute Photo)

This recent attempt to try out a new approach was led by Dr Chenoa Tremblay of the SETI Institute and Prof. Steven Tingay from the Curtin University. The approach was to utilise the magnificent field of view of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) which allows one observation to cover 2,800 galaxies. Among them, there are 1,300 galaxies that we know the distance too. The MWA in Western Australia utilises low frequencies (100MHz) to probe the distant galaxies. 

By searching these galaxies for signs of alien signals we are actually looking for advanced civilisations. It’s one thing to be able to send radio signals across interstellar space, indeed we have been doing that for decades since the advent of radio communication. As radio signals propagate across space, they weaken and certainly could not traverse the immense distances between the galaxies. It’s just possible that advanced civilisations might have the technology to harness the power of their Sun and perhaps other stars in their galaxy to send signals powerful enough to travel the millions of light years between galaxies. 

I quite love the idea of advanced civilisations that may have developed the technology to transmit ‘technosignatures’ or signs of alien technology across the Universe but alas the study did not find any. Queue sad emoji

Solar sails are an exciting way to travel through the Solar System because they get their propulsion from the Sun. NASA has developed several solar sails, and their newest, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (or ACS3), launched a few months ago into low-Earth orbit. After testing, NASA reported today that they extended the booms, deploying its 80-square-meter (860 square feet) solar sail. They’ll now use the sail to raise and lower the spacecraft’s orbit, learning more about solar sailing.

“The Sun will continue burning for billions of years, so we have a limitless source of propulsion. Instead of launching massive fuel tanks for future missions, we can launch larger sails that use ‘fuel’ already available,” said Alan Rhodes, the mission’s lead systems engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center, earlier this year. “We will demonstrate a system that uses this abundant resource to take those next giant steps in exploration and science.”

And for all you skywatchers out there, NASA said that given the reflectivity of the large sail and its position in orbit (about 1,000 km/600 miles) above Earth, ACS3 should be easily visible at times in the night sky. The Heavens Above website already has ACS3 listed on their page (just put in your location to see when to catch the solar sail passing over your area.) There should be info and updates available on social media, so follow NASA.gov and @NASAAmes on X and Instagram for updates.

ACS3 is part of NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program, which has the objective of deploying small missions that demonstrate unique capabilities rapidly. ACS3 launched in April 2024 aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from New Zealand. The spacecraft is a twelve-unit (12U) CubeSat built by NanoAvionics that’s about the size of a microwave oven. The biggest challenge designing and creating lightweight booms that could be small enough to fit inside the spacecraft while being able to extend to about 9 meters (30 ft) per side, and being strong enough to support the solar sail. The lightweight but strong composite carbon fiber boom system unrolled from the spacecraft to form rigid tubes that support the ultra-thin, reflective polymer sail.

This video shows how the booms work and the sail deploys:

When fully deployed, the sail forms a square that is about half the size of a tennis court. To change direction, the spacecraft angles its sails. Now with the boom deployment, the ACS3 team will perform maneuvers with the spacecraft, angling the sails and to change the spacecraft’s orbit.

The primary goal of the mission was to demonstrate boom deployment. With that now successfully achieved, the ACS3 team also hopes the mission will prove that their solar sail spacecraft can actually work for future solar sail-equipped science and exploration missions.?

This image shows the ACS3 being unfurled at NASA’s Langley Research Center. The solar wind is reliable but not very powerful. It requires a large sail area to power a spacecraft effectively. The ACS2 is about 9 meters (30 ft) per side, requiring a strong, lightweight boom system. Image Credit: NASA

Since ACS3 is a demonstration mission, the goal is to build larger sails that can generate more thrust. With these unique composite carbon fiber booms, the ACS3 system has the potential to support sails as large as 2,000 square meters, or about 21,500 square feet, or about half the area of a soccer field.

“The hope is that the new technologies verified on this spacecraft will inspire others to use them in ways we haven’t even considered,” Rhodes said.

And look for photos of the ACS3 fully deployed sail next week. The spacecraft has four cameras which captured a panoramic view of the reflective sail and supporting composite booms. NASA said that high-resolution imagery from these cameras will be available on Wednesday, Sept. 4.

NASA is providing updates on this mission on their Small Satellite Missions blog page.

The post NASA's New Solar Sail Extends Its Booms and Sets Sail appeared first on Universe Today.

Home

ASSURE 2017 has successfully concluded.

UPDATES

• 2017-10-01: ASSURE 2017 concluded successfully. The accepted papers appear in the SAFECOMP 2017 Workshop Proceedings. Thank you for attending! See you in 2018.
• 2017-08-28: The ASSURE 2017 Program has been announced. The final program is contingent on registration. If you haven’t already done so, please register for ASSURE 2017 via SAFECOMP 2017.
• 2017-08-27: ASSURE 2017 will be held on Tuesday, Sep. 12, 2017. The accepted papers and program will be posted here soon.
• 2017-06-02: Authors of accepted papers have been notified. The final, camera-ready version and a signed copyright release form are due on June 12, 2017. Instructions on submitting both the final version and the copyright form also have been posted.
• 2017-05-24: Paper submission deadlines have passed. Submission is now closed.
• 2016-05-16: ASSURE deadlines have been extended by a week, to May 24, 2017.
• 2017-03-27: Dr. Simon Burton, Chief Expert Safety, Reliability and Availability at Robert Bosch GmbH Central Research Division, Germany, has generously accepted to give an invited keynote talk! Watch this space for the topic and abstract for the talk.
• 2017-03-22: The deadline to submit papers to ASSURE 2017 is May 17, 2017. Submit a paper now!
• 2017-03-01: The ASSURE 2017 website is live!

Introduction

The 5th International Workshop on Assurance Cases for Software-intensive Systems (ASSURE 2017) is being collocated this year with SAFECOMP 2017, and aims to provide an international forum for high-quality contributions on the application of assurance case principles and techniques to provide assurance that the dependability properties of critical, software-intensive systems have been met.

The main goals of the workshop are to:

• Explore techniques for the creation and assessment of assurance cases for software-intensive systems
• Examine the role of assurance cases in the engineering lifecycle of critical systems
• Identify the dimension of effective practice in the development and evaluation of assurance cases
• Investigate the relationship between dependability techniques and assurance cases
• Identify critical research challenges and define a roadmap for future development

We invite original, high-quality research, practice, tools and position papers that have not been published/submitted elsewhere. See the full Call for Papers, for more details on topics. Also view the submission deadlines, and guidelines.

Program

ASSURE 2017 Program
September 12, 2017, from 08:00 – 17:30

08:00 – 09:00   Registration

09:00 – 11:00   Session 1. Welcome, Introduction, Keynote and Assurance Case Frameworks

09:00 – 09:05 Welcome and Introduction, ASSURE 2017 Organizers

09:05 – 10:00 Keynote Talk: Making the Case for Safety of Machine Learning in Highly Automated Driving, Simon Burton (with Lydia Gauerhof and Christian Heinzemann) 

10:00 – 10:30 A Thought Experiment on Evolution of Assurance Cases – from a Logical Aspect, Y. Kinoshita and S. Kinoshita

10:30 – 11:00   Morning Coffee/Tea Break

11:00 – 12:30   Session 2. Assurance Case Tool Support

11:00 – 11:30 Uniform Model Interface for Assurance Case Integration with System Models, A. Wardziński and P. Jones

11:30 – 12:00 ExplicitCase: Integrated Model-based Development of System and Safety Cases, C. Cârlan, S. Barner, A. Diewald, A. Tsalidis and S. Voss

12:00 – 12:30 D-Case Communicator: A Web-Based GSN Editor for Multiple Stakeholders, Y. Matsuno

12:30 – 13:30   Lunch Break

13:30 – 15:30   Session 3. Assurance Cases for Security

13:30 – 14:00 Reconciling Systems-Theoretic and Component-Centric Methods for Safety and Security Co-Analysis, W. Temple, Y. Wu, B. Chen and Z. Kalbarczyk

14:00 – 14:30 Towards combined safety and security constraints analysis, D. Pereira, C. Hirata, R. Pagliares and S. Nadjm-Tehrani

14:30 – 15:00 Attack Modeling for System Security Analysis and Assurance Case, A. Altawairqi and M. Maarek

15:00 – 15:30 Using an Assurance Case Framework to Develop Security Strategy and Policies, R. Bloomfield, P. Bishop, E. Butler and K. Netkachova

15:30 – 16:00   Afternoon Coffee/Tea Break

16:00 – 17:25   Session 4. Guided Discussion

17:25 – 17:30   ASSURE 2017 Conclusion and Wrap-Up

Important Dates EVENTDEADLINEWorkshop Papers Due24 May 2017Notification of Acceptance31 May 2017Camera-ready Copies Due12 June 2017ASSURE 2017 WorkshopSeptember 12, 2017SAFECOMP 2017September 13 – 15, 2017 Call for Papers

Software plays a key role in high-risk systems, e.g., safety-, and security-critical systems. Several certification standards/guidelines now recommend and/or mandate the development of assurance cases for software-intensive systems, e.g., defense (UK MoD DS-0056), aviation (CAP 670, FAA’s operational approval guidance for unmanned aircraft systems), automotive (ISO 26262), and healthcare (FDA infusion pumps total product lifecycle guidance). As such, there is a need to develop models, techniques and tools that target the development of assurance arguments for software.

The goals of the 2017 Workshop on Assurance Cases for Software-intensive Systems (ASSURE 2017) are to:

• explore techniques for creating/assessing assurance cases for software-intensive systems;
• examine the role of assurance cases in the engineering lifecycle of critical systems;
• identify the dimensions of effective practice in the development and evaluation of assurance cases;
• investigate the relationship between dependability techniques and assurance cases; and,
• identify critical research challenges and define a roadmap for future development.

We solicit high-quality contributions: research, practice, tools and position papers on the application of assurance case principles and techniques to assure that the dependability properties of critical software-intensive systems have been met.

Papers should attempt to address the workshop goals in general.

Topics

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Assurance issues in emerging paradigms, e.g., adaptive and autonomous systems, including self-driving cars, unmanned aircraft systems, complex health care and decision making systems, etc.
• Standards: Industry guidelines and standards are increasingly requiring the development of assurance cases, e.g., the automotive standard ISO 26262 and the FDA guidance on the total product lifecycle for infusion pumps.
• Certification and Regulations: The role and usage of assurance cases in the certification of critical systems, as well as to show compliance to regulations.
• Empiricism: Empirical assessment of the applicability of assurance cases in different domains and certification regimes.
• Dependable architectures: How do fault-tolerant architectures and design measures such as diversity and partitioning relate to assurance cases?
• Dependability analysis: What are the relationships between dependability analysis techniques and the assurance case paradigm?
• Safety and security co-engineering: What are the impacts of security on safety, particularly safety cases, and how can safety and security cases (e.g., as proposed in ISO 26262 and SAE J 3061 respectively) be reconciled?
• Tools: Using the output from software engineering tools (testing, formal verification, code generators) as evidence in assurance cases / using tools for the modeling, analysis and management of assurance cases.
• Application of formal techniques for the creation, analysis, reuse, and modularization of arguments.
• Exploration of relevant techniques for assurance cases for real-time, concurrent, and distributed systems.
• Assurance of software quality attributes, e.g., safety, security and maintainability, as well as dependability in general, including tradeoffs, and exploring notions of the quality of assurance cases themselves.
• Domain-specific assurance issues, in domains such as aerospace, automotive, healthcare, defense and power.
• Reuse and Modularization: Contracts and patterns for improving the reuse of assurance case structures.
• Relations between different formalisms and paradigms of assurance and argumentation, such as Goal Structuring Notation, STAMP, IBIS, and goal-oriented formalisms such as KAOS.

Submit

Submission Instructions for Accepted Papers

If your paper has been accepted for the ASSURE 2017 Program, please follow the instructions below, when preparing your final, camera-ready paper for the proceedings.

1. Deadline

The final paper and the signed copyright form are due on June 12, 2017. This is a firm deadline for the production of the proceedings.

2. Copyright Release

• Authors must fill and sign the Springer “Consent to Publish” copyright release form using the following information:
  • Title of the Book or Conference Name: Computer Safety, Reliability, and Security – SAFECOMP 2017 Workshops – ASSURE, DECSoS, SASSUR, TELERISE, and TIPS
  • Volume Editor(s): Stefano Tonetta, Erwin Schoitsch, Friedemann Bitsch
• One author may sign on behalf of all authors.
• Springer does not accept digital signatures, unfortunately. Please physically sign the form, scan, and email it in PDF or any acceptable image format, to the SAFECOMP 2017 Publication Chair by the deadline above.
• Alternatively, upload the signed, and completed form via EasyChair using your author account.

3. Corresponding Authors

Please nominate a corresponding author, whose name and email address must be included in the email containing the copyright release form. This author will be responsible for checking the pre-print proof of your paper prepared by Springer.

4. Pre-print Checking

The publisher has recently introduced an extra control loop: once data processing is finished, they will contact all corresponding authors and ask them to check their papers. We expect this to happen shortly before the printing of the proceedings. At that time your quick interaction with Springer-Verlag will be greatly appreciated.

5. Formatting and Page Limits

Please do not change the spacing and dimensions associated with the paper template files. Please ensure that your paper meets the page limits for your paper type. Page limits are strict.

• Regular research/practice papers: 12 pages including figures, references, and appendices.
• Tools papers: 10 pages, including figures, references, and appendices.
• Position papers: 4 – 6 pages including figures, references, and any appendices.

6. Final Paper Submission

Submit your camera ready paper using your EasyChair author account, for inclusion into the Workshop Proceedings. After you have logged in, select the Proceedings Author role to be directed to the submission page.

Springer reserves the right to reformat your paper to meet their print and digital publication requirements. Consequently, you will need to submit all the source files associated with your paper. Follow the instructions after the login for uploading two files:

1. either a zipped file containing all your LaTeX sources or a Word file in the RTF format, and
2. a PDF version of your camera-ready paper.

Please follow the LNCS paper formatting guidelines when preparing the final version.

Committees

Workshop Chairs

• Ewen Denney, SGT / NASA Ames, USA
• Ibrahim Habli, University of York, UK
• Ganesh Pai, SGT / NASA Ames, USA
• Kenji Taguchi, AIST, Japan

Program Committee

• Robin Bloomfield, City University, and Adelard, UK
• Simon Burton, Bosch Research, Germany
• Isabelle Conway, ESA/ESTEC, Netherlands
• Martin Feather, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA
• Jérémie Guiochet, LAAS-CNRS, France
• Richard Hawkins, University of York, UK
• Joshua Kaizer, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, USA
• Tim Kelly, University of York, UK
• Yoshiki Kinoshita, Kanagawa University, Japan
• Terrence Martin, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
• Andrew Rae, Griffith University, Australia
• Philippa Ryan, Adelard, UK
• Roger Rivett, Jaguar Land Rover, UK
• Mark-Alexander Sujan, University of Warwick, UK
• Sean White, NHS Digital, UK

Previous ASSURE Workshops

• ASSURE 2016, Trondheim, Norway
• ASSURE 2015, Delft, The Netherlands
• ASSURE 2014, Naples, Italy
• ASSURE 2013, San Francisco, USA

Contact the Organizers

If you have questions about paper topics, submission and/or about ASSURE 2016 in general, please contact the Workshop Organizers.

1 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA astronaut Steve Swanson harvests a crop of red romaine lettuce plants aboard the International Space Station. Grown from seeds in the Veggie facility, this crop is part of the Veg-01 study to help researchers test and validate the Veggie hardware.NASA NASA Life Sciences Portal (NLSP)

The NASA Life Sciences Portal (NLSP) is the gateway to discovering and accessing all archive data from investigations sponsored by NASA’s Human Research Program (HRP). The HRP conducts research and develops technologies that allow humans to travel safely and productively in space. The Program uses evidence from data collected from astronauts, animals, and plants over many decades, and stored in several repositories accessible via the NLSP, including the Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA) and Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health and Standard Measures repositories.

Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA)

NASA’s Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA) is an archive that provides information and data from 1961 (Mercury Project) through current flight and flight analog studies (International Space Station) involving human, plant and animal subjects. ​

Much of the information and data are publicly available on this site. Some data are potentially attributable to individual human subjects, and thus restricted by the Privacy Act, but can be requested for research.

Human Health and Performance Products Share

Details Last Updated Aug 29, 2024 EditorRobert E. LewisLocationJohnson Space Center Related Terms

• Human Health and Performance

Explore More 1 min read Participate in the Mission – Be a Human Test Subject! Article 1 year ago 1 min read Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health (LSAH) Article 1 year ago 1 min read Human Health and Performance Data Sharing Article 1 year ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA

Humans In Space

Missions

International Space Station

Solar System

On Aug. 29, 1789, German-born British astronomer William Herschel observed a tiny bright dot orbiting around Saturn. His son later named the object Enceladus. Because of its distance from Earth and proximity to bright Saturn, for the next two centuries little remained known about Enceladus other than its size, orbital parameters, and that it held the honor as the most reflective body in the solar system. It took the Voyager flybys through the Saturn system in the early 1980s and especially the detailed observations between 2005 and 2015 by the Saturn orbiter Cassini to reveal Enceladus as a truly remarkable world, interacting with Saturn and its rings. Harboring a subsurface ocean of salty water, Enceladus may possibly be hospitable to some forms of life.

Left: Portrait (1785) of William Herschel by Lemuel Francis Abbott. Image credit: courtesy National Portrait Gallery, London. Middle: Drawing of Herschel’s 40-foot telescope. Right: Portrait (1867) of John Herschel by Julia Margaret Cameron. Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Herschel’s previous astronomical accomplishments include the discovery of Uranus in 1781 and two of its moons, Oberon and Titania, in 1787. He also catalogued numerous objects he termed nebulae, but remained frustrated by the limitations of telescopes of his age. He began to build ever larger instruments, finally building the world’s largest reflecting telescope of its time. At 40 feet long, and with a 49-inch diameter primary mirror weighing a ton, it looked impressive although its optical characteristics did not advance the field as much as he had hoped. Nevertheless, Herschel used this telescope to observe Saturn and its five known moons, looking for others. On Aug. 28, 1789, he observed a bright point orbiting the planet and believed he had discovered a sixth moon. On Sept. 17, he discovered a seventh moon orbiting the ringed planet. He did not name these moons, that task fell to his son John who believed Saturn’s moons should be named after the Titans of Greek mythology. He named the first moon Enceladus and the second Mimas.

Left: Relative sizes of Earth, Earth’s Moon, and Enceladus. Right: Best Voyager 2 image of Enceladus.

For nearly two centuries, Enceladus remained not much more than a point of light orbiting Saturn, just another icy moon in the outer solar system. Astronomers estimated its diameter at around 310 miles and its orbital period around Saturn at 1.4 days, with a mean distance from the planet’s center of 148,000 miles. Enceladus has the distinction as one of the brightest objects in the solar system, reflecting almost 100 percent of the Sun’s light. Unusual telescope observations during the 20th century showed an increase in brightness on its trailing side, with no known explanation at the time. In 1966, astronomers discovered a diffuse ring around Saturn, the E-ring, and found in 1980 that its density peaked near Enceladus. The Voyager 1 spacecraft flew within 125,570 miles of Enceladus during its passage through the Saturn system on Nov. 12, 1980. Its twin Voyager 2 came within 54,000 miles on Aug. 26, 1981, during its flyby. These close encounters enabled the spacecraft to return the first detailed images of the moon, showing various terrains, including heavily cratered areas as well as smooth crater-free areas, indicating a very young surface.

Left: False color image of Enceladus from Cassini showing the tiger stripes at bottom. Middle: Limb view of Enceladus showing plumes of material emanating from its surface. Right: Cassini image of Enceladus backlit by the Sun showing the fountain-like plumes of material.

After the Cassini spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn in July 2004, our understanding of Enceladus increased tremendously, and of course raised new questions. Between 2005 and 2015, Cassini encountered Enceladus 22 times, turning its various instruments on the moon to unravel its secrets. It noted early on that the moon emitted gas and dust or ice particles and that they interacted with the E-ring. Images of the moon’s south polar region revealed cracks on the surface and other instruments detected a huge cloud of water vapor over the area. The moon likely had a liquid subsurface and some of this material reached the outside through these cracks. Scientists named the most prominent of these areas “tiger stripes” and later observations confirmed them as the source of the most prominent jets. During the most daring encounter in October 2015, Cassini came within 30 miles of the Enceladus’ surface, flying through the plume of material emanating from the moon. Analysis of the plumes revealed an organic brew of volatile gases, water vapor, ammonia, sodium salts, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. These plumes replenish Saturn’s E-ring, and some of this material enters Saturn’s upper atmosphere, an interaction unique in the solar system. More recently, the James Webb Space Telescope imaged the water vapor plume emanating from Enceladus’ south pole, extending out 40 times the size of the moon itself. The confirmation of a subsurface ocean of salty water has led some scientists to postulate that Enceladus may be hospitable to some forms of life, making it a potential target for future exploration. Enceladus may yet have more surprises, even as scientists continue to pore over the data returned by Cassini.

Left: James Webb Space Telescope image of a water vapor plume emanating from Enceladus. Right: Illustration of the interaction of Enceladus and Saturn’s E-ring.

Map of Enceladus based on imagery from Cassini, turning our view of Enceladus from a small point of light into a unique world with its own topography.

Events in world history in 1789:

January 29 – Vietnamese emperor Quang Trung defeats Chinese Qing forces at Ngọc Hồi-Đống Đa in one of the greatest military victories in Vietnamese history.

March 10 – In Japan, the Menashi-Kunashir rebellion begins between the Ainu people and the Japanese.

April 7 – Selim III succeeds Abdul Hamid I as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

April 28 – Aboard the HMS Bounty in the Pacific Ocean, Fletcher Christian leads the mutiny against Captain William Bligh.

April 30 – Inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States of America.

July 14 – Citizens storm The Bastille fortress in Paris during the French Revolution.

September 15 – Birth of American writer James Fenimore Cooper in Burlington, New Jersey.

December 11 – Founding of the University of North Carolina, the oldest public university in the United States.

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Rogue Planets, or free-floating planetary-mass objects (FFPMOs), are planet-sized objects that either formed in interstellar space or were part of a planetary system before gravitational perturbations kicked them out. Since they were first observed in 2000, astronomers have detected hundreds of candidates that are untethered to any particular star and float through the interstellar medium (ISM) of our galaxy. In fact, some scientists estimate that there could be as many as 2 trillion rogue planets (or more!) wandering through the Milky Way alone.

In recent news, a team of astronomers working with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) announced the discovery of six rogue planet candidates in an unlikely spot. The planets, which include the lightest rogue planet ever identified (with a debris disk around it), were spotted during Webb‘s deepest survey of the young nebula NGC 1333, a star-forming cluster about a thousand light-years away in the Perseus constellation. These planets could teach astronomers a great deal about the formation process of stars and planets.

The team was led by Adam Langeveld, an Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). He was joined by colleagues from the Carl Sagan Institute, the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets, the Mont Mégantic Observatory, the Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Victoria, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA) at the University of St Andrews. The paper detailing the survey’s findings has been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.

Most of the rogue planets detected to date were discovered using Gravitational Microlensing, while others were detected via Direct Imaging. The former method relies on “lensing events,” where the gravitational force of massive objects alters the curvature of spacetime around them and amplifies light from more distant objects. The latter consists of spotting brown dwarfs (objects that straddle the line between planets and stars) and massive planets directly by detecting the infrared radiation produced within their atmospheres.

In their paper, the team describes how the discovery occurred during an extremely deep spectroscopic survey of NGC1333. Using data from Webb‘s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS), the team measured the spectrum of every object in the observed portion of the star cluster. This allowed them to reanalyze spectra from 19 previously observed brown dwarfs and led to the discovery of a new brown dwarf with a planetary-mass companion. This latter observation was a rare find that already challenges theories of how binary systems form. But the real kicker was the detection of six planets with 5-10 times the mass of Jupiter (aka. super-Jupiters).

This means these six candidates are among the lowest-mass rogue planets ever found that formed through the same process as brown dwarfs and stars. This was the purpose of the Deep Spectroscopic Survey for Young Brown Dwarfs and Free-Floating Planets survey, which was to investigate massive objects that are not quite large enough to become stars. The fact that Webb’s observations revealed no objects lower than five Jupiter masses (which it is sensitive enough to detect) is a strong indication that stellar objects lighter than are more likely to form the way planets do.

Said lead author Langeveld in a statement released by JHU’s new source (the Hub):

“We are probing the very limits of the star-forming process. If you have an object that looks like a young Jupiter, is it possible that it could have become a star under the right conditions? This is important context for understanding both star and planet formation.”

New wide-field view mosaic from the James Webb Space Telescope spectroscopic survey of NGC1333 with three of the newly discovered free-floating planetary-mass objects indicated by green markers. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Scholz, K. Muzic, A. Langeveld, R. Jayawardhana

The most intriguing of the rogue planets was also the lightest: an estimated five Jupiter masses (about 1,600 Earths). Since dust and gas generally fall into a disk during the early stages of star formation, the presence of this debris ring around the one planet strongly suggests that it formed in the same way stars do. However, planetary systems also form from debris disks (aka. circumsolar disks), which suggests that these objects may be able to form their own satellites. This suggests that these massive planets could be a nursery for a miniature planet system – like our Solar System, but on a much smaller scale.

Said Johns Hopkins Provost Ray Jayawardhana, an astrophysicist and senior author of the study (who also leads the survey group):

“It turns out the smallest free-floating objects that form like stars overlap in mass with giant exoplanets circling nearby stars. It’s likely that such a pair formed the way binary star systems do, from a cloud fragmenting as it contracted. The diversity of systems that nature has produced is remarkable and pushes us to refine our models of star and planet formation…

“Our observations confirm that nature produces planetary mass objects in at least two different ways—from the contraction of a cloud of gas and dust, the way stars form, and in disks of gas and dust around young stars, as Jupiter in our own solar system did.”

In the coming months, the team plans to use Webb to conduct follow-up studies of these rogue planets’ atmospheres and compare them to those of brown dwarfs and gas giants. They also plan to search the star-forming region for other objects with debris disks to investigate the possibility of mini-planetary systems. The data they obtain will also help astronomers refine their estimates on the number of rogue planets in our galaxy. The new Webb observations indicate that such bodies account for about 10% of celestial bodies in the targeted cluster.

Current estimates place the number of stars in our galaxy between 100 and 400 billion stars and the number of planets between 800 billion and 3.2 trillion. At 10%, that would suggest that there are anywhere from 90 to 360 billion rogue worlds floating out there. As we have explored in previous articles, we might be able to explore some of them someday, and our Sun may even capture a few!

Further Reading: HUB

The post Webb Discovers Six New “Rogue Worlds” that Provide Clues to Star Formation appeared first on Universe Today.

An artist’s concept of Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander on the Moon’s South Pole.Credit: Intuitive Machines

A new set of NASA science experiments and technology demonstrations will arrive at the lunar South Pole in 2027 following the agency’s latest CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative delivery award. Intuitive Machines of Houston will receive $116.9 million to deliver six NASA payloads to a part of the Moon where nighttime temperatures are frigid, the terrain is rugged, and the permanently shadowed regions could help reveal the origin of water throughout our solar system.

Part of the agency’s broader Artemis campaign, CLPS aims to conduct science on the Moon for the benefit of all, including experiments and demos that support missions with crew on the lunar surface.

“This marks the 10th CLPS delivery NASA has awarded, and the fourth planned for delivery to the South Pole of the Moon,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By supporting a robust cadence of CLPS flights to a variety of locations on the lunar surface, including two flights currently planned by companies for later this year, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before.”

NASA has awarded Intuitive Machine’s four task orders. The company delivered six NASA payloads to Malapert A in the South Pole region of the Moon in early 2024. With this lunar South Pole delivery, Intuitive Machines will be responsible for payload integration, launch from Earth, safe landing on the Moon, and mission operations.

“The instruments on this newly awarded flight will help us achieve multiple scientific objectives and strengthen our understanding of the Moon’s environment,” said Chris Culbert, manager of the CLPS initiative at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “For example, they’ll help answer key questions about where volatiles – such as water, ice, or gas – are found on the lunar surface and measure radiation in the South Pole region, which could advance our exploration efforts on the Moon and help us with continued exploration of Mars.”

The instruments, collectively expected to be about 174 pounds (79 kilograms) in mass, include:

• The Lunar Explorer Instrument for Space Biology Applications will deliver yeast to the lunar surface and study its response to radiation and lunar gravity. The payload is managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.
• Package for Resource Observation and In-Situ Prospecting for Exploration, Characterization and Testing is a suite of instruments that will drill down to 3.3 feet (1 meter) beneath the lunar surface, extract samples, and process them in-situ in a miniaturized laboratory, to identify possible volatiles (water, ice, or gas) trapped at extremely cold temperatures under the surface. This suite is led by ESA (European Space Agency). 
• The Laser Retroreflector Array is a collection of eight retroreflectors that will enable lasers to precisely measure the distance between a spacecraft and the reflector on the lander. The array is a passive optical instrument and will function as a permanent location marker on the Moon for decades to come. The retroflector array is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 
• The Surface Exosphere Alterations by Landers will investigate the chemical response of lunar regolith to the thermal, physical, and chemical disturbances generated during a landing, and evaluate contaminants injected into the regolith by the lander. It will give insight into how a spacecraft landing might affect the composition of samples collected nearby. This payload is managed by NASA Goddard.
• The Fluxgate Magnetometer will characterize certain magnetic fields to improve the understanding of energy and particle pathways at the lunar surface and is managed by NASA Goddard.
• The Lunar Compact Infrared Imaging System will deploy a radiometer – a device that measures infrared wavelengths of light – to explore the Moon’s surface composition, map its surface temperature distribution, and demonstrate the instrument’s feasibility for future lunar resource utilization activities. The imaging system is managed by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Under CLPS, multiple commercial deliveries to different geographic regions will help NASA conduct science and continue working toward a long-term human presence on the Moon. Future deliveries will include sophisticated science experiments, and technology demonstrations as part of the agency’s Artemis campaign. Two upcoming CLPS flights slated to launch near the end of 2024 will deliver NASA payloads to the Moon’s nearside and South Pole, including the Intuitive Machines-2 delivery of NASA’s first on-site demonstration of searching for water and other chemical compounds 3.3 feet below the surface of the Moon, using a drill and mass spectrometer.

Learn more about CLPS and Artemis at:

https://www.nasa.gov/clps

-end-

Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1275
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov

Laura Sorto / Natalia Riusech      
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
laura.g.sorto@nasa.gov / natalia.s.riusech@nasa.gov

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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA Deputy Associate Administrator Casey Swails examines a sample of algae through a microscope in the Space Biosciences Research Lab. Swails, alongside Director of Cross Agency Strategy Integration John Keefe and Associate Administrator Jim Free, toured the NASA Ames campus on Aug. 28.NASA/Donald Richey

NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free, Deputy Associate Administrator Casey Swails, and Director of Cross-Agency Strategy John Keefe visited NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley on Aug. 28. The visit was an opportunity for the leaders to meet with center leadership and tour multiple Ames facilities. Free, Swails, and Keefe also met with employees to discuss NASA 2040, a strategic agency initiative aimed at driving meaningful changes that will allow the agency to realize its long-term vision for what leaders and employees want the agency to be in 2040 and beyond.

During their tour, researchers at the Space Biosciences Research Lab presented on innovative projects like the Lunar Explorer Instrument for space biology Applications, an instrument that will study how yeast reacts to the lunar environment. The three leaders also learned about innovative wildfire research and other projects that seek to advance space exploration through scientific discoveries and technical developments.

The group ended their tour by visiting NASA Research Park tenants like the USGS National Innovation Center, and viewing the proposed future site of the UC Berkeley Space Center, a 36-acre campus and innovation hub for research and advancements in aeronautics, quantum computing, climate studies, social sciences, and more.

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Scientists have discovered that Earth has a third field. We all know about the Earth’s magnetic field. And we all know about Earth’s gravity field, though we usually just call it gravity.

Now, a team of international scientists have found Earth’s global electric field.

It’s called the ambipolar electric field, and it’s a weak electric field that surrounds the planet. It’s responsible for the polar wind, which was first detected decades ago. The polar wind is an outflow of plasma from the polar regions of Earth’s magnetosphere. Scientists hypothesized the ambipolar field’s existence decades ago, and now they finally have proof.

The discovery is in a new article in Nature titled “Earth’s ambipolar electrostatic field and its role in ion escape to space.” The lead author is Glyn Collinson from the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

“It’s like this conveyor belt, lifting the atmosphere up into space.”

Glyn Collinson, Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The Space Age gained momentum back in the 1960s as the USA and USSR launched more and more satellites. When spacecraft passed over the Earth’s poles, they detected an outflow of particles from Earth’s atmosphere into space. Scientists named this the polar wind, but for decades, it was mysterious.

Scientists expect some particles from Earth to “leak” into space. Sunlight can cause this. But if that’s the case, the particles should be heated. The wind is mysterious because many particles in it are cold despite moving at supersonic speeds.

“Something had to be drawing these particles out of the atmosphere,” said lead author Collinson.

Collinson is also the Principal Investigator for NASA’s “Endurance” Sounding Rocket Mission. “The purpose of the Endurance mission was to make the first measurement of the magnitude and structure of the electric field generated by Earth’s ionosphere,” NASA writes in their mission description. Endurance launched on May 22nd, 2022, from Norway’s Svalbard Archipelago.

This image shows NASA’s Endurance rocket launching from Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway. It flew for 19 minutes to an altitude of about 780 km (484 mi) above Earth’s sunlit polar cap. It carried six science instruments and could only be launched in certain conditions to be successful. Image Credit: NASA/Brian Bonsteel.

“Svalbard is the only rocket range in the world where you can fly through the polar wind and make the measurements we needed,” said Suzie Imber, a space physicist at the University of Leicester, UK, and co-author of the paper.

Svalbard is key because there are open magnetic field lines above Earth’s polar caps. These field lines provide a pathway for ions to outflow to the magnetosphere.

This figure from the research shows Endurance’s flight profile and its path over Earth. The rocket had to fly near the open magnetic field lines that exist at Svalbard’s high polar latitudes. Image Credit: Collinson et al. 2024.

After it was launched, Collinson said, “We got fabulous data all through the flight, though it will be a while before we can really dig into it to see if we achieved our science objective or not.”

Now, the data is in, and the results show that Earth has a global electric field.

Prior to its discovery, scientists hypothesized that the field was weak and that its effects could only be felt over hundreds of kilometres. Even though it was first proposed 60 years ago, scientists had to wait for technology to advance before they could measure it. In 2016, Collinson and his colleagues began inventing a new instrument that could measure the elusive field.

At about 250 km (150 mi) above the Earth’s surface, atoms break apart into negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions. Electrons are far lighter than ions, and the tiniest energetic jolt can send them into space. Ions are more than 1800 times heavier, and gravity draws them back to the surface.

If gravity were the only force at work, the two populations would separate over time and simply drift apart. But that’s not what happens.

Electrons and ions have opposite electrical charges. They’re attracted to one another and an electric field forms that keeps them together. This counteracts some of gravity’s power.

The field is called ambipolar because it’s bidirectional. That means it works in both directions. As ions sink down due to gravity, the electrical charges mean that the ions drag some of the electrons down with them. However, at the same time, electrons lift ions high into the atmosphere with them as they attempt to leave the atmosphere and escape into space.

via GIPHY

The result of all this is that the ambipolar field extends the atmosphere’s height, meaning some of the ions escape with the polar wind.

After decades of hypothesizing and theorizing, the Endurance rocket measured a change in electric potential of only 0.55 volts. That’s extremely weak but enough to be measurable.

“A half a volt is almost nothing — it’s only about as strong as a watch battery,” Collinson said. “But that’s just the right amount to explain the polar wind.”

Hydrogen ions are the most plentiful particles in the polar wind. Endurance’s results show that these ions experience an outward force from the magnetic field that’s 10.6 times more powerful than gravity. “That’s more than enough to counter gravity — in fact, it’s enough to launch them upwards into space at supersonic speeds,” said Alex Glocer, Endurance project scientist at NASA Goddard and co-author of the paper.

Hydrogen ions are light, but even the heavier particles in the polar wind are lifted. Oxygen ions in the weak electrical field effectively weigh half as much, yet they’re boosted to greater heights, too. Overall, the ambipolar field makes the ionosphere denser at higher altitudes than it would be without the field’s lofting effect. “It’s like this conveyor belt, lifting the atmosphere up into space,” Collinson added.

“The measurements support the hypothesis that the ambipolar electric field is the primary driver of ionospheric H+ outflow and of the supersonic polar wind of light ions escaping from the polar caps,” the authors explain in their paper.

“We infer that this increases the supply of cold O+ ions to the magnetosphere by more than 3,800%,” the authors write. At that point, other mechanisms come into play. Wave-particle interactions can heat the ions, accelerating them to escape velocity.

These results raise other questions. How does this field affect Earth? Has the field affected the planet’s habitability? Do other planets have these fields?

Back in 2016, the European Space Agency’s Venus Express mission detected a 10-volt electric potential surrounding the planet. This means that positively charged particles would be pulled away from the planet’s surface. This could draw away oxygen.

Scientists think that Venus may have once had plentiful water. However, since sunlight splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, the electric field could’ve siphoned the oxygen away, eliminating the planet’s water. This is theoretical, but it begs the question of why the same thing hasn’t happened on Earth.

The ambipolar field is fundamental to Earth. Its role in the evolution of the planet’s atmosphere and biosphere is yet to be understood, but it must play a role.

“Any planet with an atmosphere should have an ambipolar field,” Collinson said. “Now that we’ve finally measured it, we can begin learning how it’s shaped our planet as well as others over time.”

The post A NASA Rocket Has Finally Found Earth’s Global Electric Field appeared first on Universe Today.

For 25 years, the Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center has inspired and provided high school students across the state of Texas with NASA-focused learning experiences through the High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS) program. The OSTEM team celebrated the milestone on Monday, July 29 at Johnson’s Gilruth Center with poster sessions, special presentations, and a networking reception.

Fifty-one students who participated in the 2024 High School Aerospace Scholars program were invited to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to participate in an on-site experience. NASA/James Blair

An authentic STEM learning experience for Texas high school juniors, HAS provides opportunities for students to engage with NASA’s missions and become the next generation of explorers. The year-long program begins in the fall with an online, state-aligned STEM learning experience focused on Earth science, technology, aeronautics, the solar system, the International Space Station, and NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach. Students engage in approximately four months of virtual learning through curriculum including interactive lessons, rubric-based activities, and quizzes.

Students who complete the online courses with an overall average of 70% or greater receive an invitation to a five-day virtual summer experience called Moonshot. While actively mentored by NASA scientists and engineers, students work with a team to complete an Artemis-themed Moon to Mars mission and design challenge. The summer session also includes numerous gamified activities and guidance towards pathways to STEM careers.

High School Aerospace Scholars collaborated on an engineering design challenge during their on-site experience at Johnson Space Center. NASA/Bill Stafford

The top performing Moonshot teams are then invited to a four-day residential experience at Johnson, with lodging, meals, and transportation provided at no cost to the students. During the on-site session, students participate in NASA facility tours, complete engineering design challenges, and meet with NASA scientists and engineers who offer guidance on STEM careers. At the completion of the program, students can earn up to one full science elective credit for school.

The HAS 25th anniversary celebration coincided with this year’s on-site experience. During the 2023-2024 school year, 798 students participated in the HAS online course, with 359 advancing to the summer Moonshot experience. The top six Moonshot teams (51 students) were invited to Johnson.

High School Aerospace Scholars presented their Moonshot projects to Johnson Space Center team members during a poster session. NASA/James Blair

The 51 selected students kicked off the anniversary celebration with a poster session to present their Moonshot projects. Following the session, students heard from Johnson Center Director Vanessa Wyche and Deputy Director Steve Koerner during a fireside chat. Speakers included Pam Melroy, NASA Deputy Administrator; Arturo Sanchez, Johnson External Relations Office Director; Mike Kincaid, NASA OSTEM Associate Administrator; Greg Bonnen, member of the Texas House of Representatives; Brian Freedman, Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership President; and Shelly Tornquist, director of Texas A&M University College of Engineering’s education outreach program, Spark!

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke meets with 2024 High School Aerospace Scholars.NASA/Helen Arase Vargas

Other notable attendees included NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, HAS activity managers from the past 25 years, and current HAS activity manager, Jakarda Varnado.

Continuing the celebration, HAS hosted the second annual Alumni Social on Wednesday, July 31 encouraging current and former HAS students and mentors to connect over lunch. The annual student rocket launch was also held onsite on Thursday, August 1.

2024 High School Aerospace Scholars prepare their model rockets for launch during the program’s on-site activities at Johnson Space Center. NASA/Josh Valcarcel

Additionally, the HAS team activated a mobile exhibit at two different on-site locations throughout the week. Over 150 guests stopped by the exhibit, which featured a HAS video montage and the opportunity to touch a lunar sample. Several of the visitors communicated their appreciation for HAS, noting the program has made significant impact on their children’s motivation, school performance, and career paths. Many alumni have gone on to pursue careers within STEM, including nearly 30 HAS participants who have been employed by NASA within the past five years.

2024 High School Aerospace Scholars connected with program alumni and HAS mentors during the Alumni Social held onsite at Johnson Space Center. NASA/Helen Arase Vargas

For alumni who wish to continue their experience beyond the year-long program, HAS recently launched a mentorship course, for high school seniors. The course contains modules about leadership and STEM career opportunities and was designed to continue to engage the students as they prepare for the next step in their education or to launch their careers. Alumni also act as an additional layer of support for the junior scholars as they navigate their HAS experience.

HAS is made possible through collaborations among NASA, the State of Texas, Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and Rotary National Award for Space Achievement.

Applications will reopen in September for students interested in participating in the 2025 HAS experience.

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