Search

Juno is a PI-led mission to Jupiter, the second mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program. The 3625-kg spacecraft spins at 2 rpm and is powered by three 9-meter-long solar arrays that provide ∼500 watts in orbit about Jupiter. Juno carries eight science instruments that perform nine science investigations (radio science utilizes the communications antenna). Juno’s science objectives target Jupiter’s origin, interior, and atmosphere, and include an investigation of Jupiter’s polar magnetosphere and luminous aurora.

Software development in today's world has many interesting challenges. Demand for Software Engineers is greater than ever, requiring software engineering staff to be used as efficiently as possible; software development continues to be an activity susceptible to inefficiency, risk and quality issues; and software maintenance challenges are expanding as languages and libraries increase in number and complexity, and software engineers move between companies. The Space Data Systems (SDS) software engineering organization at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI®) produced 33 production software products over a 20-year period with a staff averaging 6 software engineers and testers. During that time, SDS created and refined the Clarity software engineering process in order to produce highly reliable and maintainable software products for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and other customers. With Clarity, SDS raised its average effectiveness for the past six years to 95%, meaning that SDS spent 95% of its time creating new functions or expanding existing functions, as opposed to fixing bugs. Clarity maximizes staff effectiveness by implementing enough process by the right person at the right time to minimize software rework, without slowing core software development and testing activities. Through a system of product-independent checklists and forms, Clarity mitigates error propagation through the software lifecycle process, leveraging the Software Lead as the process executor, and leaving software engineers and software testers to do what they do best - produce quality software products.

The SuperNovae Analysis aPplication (SNAP) is a new tool for the analysis of SN observations and validation of SN models. SNAP consists of an open source relational database with (a) observational light curve, (b) theoretical light curve, and (c) correlation table sets, statistical comparison software, and a web interface available to the community. The theoretical models are intended to span a gridded range of parameter space. The goal is to have users to upload new SN models or new SN observations and run the comparison software to determine correlations via the web site. There are looming problems on the horizon that SNAP begins to solve. Namely, large surveys will discover thousands of SNe annually. Frequently, the parameter space of a new SN event is unbounded. SNAP will be a resource to constrain parameters and determine if an event needs follow-up without spending resources to create new light curve models from scratch. Secondly, there is not a rapidly available, systematic way to determine degeneracies between parameters or even what physics is needed to model a realistic SNe. The correlations made within the SNAP system begin to solve these problems., Comment: Submitted to AAS publishing, 22 pages, 8 figures

The Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) investigation will determine the mass composition and number densities of neutral species and low-energy ions in key regions of the Saturn system. The primary focus of the INMS investigation is on the composition and structure of Titan’s upper atmosphere and its interaction with Saturn’s magnetospheric plasma. Of particular interest is the high-altitude region, between 900 and 1000 km, where the methane and nitrogen photochemistry is initiated that leads to the creation of complex hydrocarbons and nitriles that may eventually precipitate onto the moon’s surface to form hydrocarbon—nitrile lakes or oceans. The investigation is also focused on the neutral and plasma environments of Saturn’s ring system and icy moons and on the identification of positive ions and neutral species in Saturn’s inner magnetosphere. Measurement of material sputtered from the satellites and the rings by magnetospheric charged particle and micrometeorite bombardment is expected to provide information about the formation of the giant neutral cloud of water molecules and water products that surrounds Saturn out to a distance of ~12 planetary radii and about the genesis and evolution of the rings.

The Cassini Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) has obtained the first in situ composition measurements of the neutral densities of molecular nitrogen, methane, molecular hydrogen, argon, and a host of stable carbon-nitrile compounds in Titan's upper atmosphere. INMS in situ mass spectrometry has also provided evidence for atmospheric waves in the upper atmosphere and the first direct measurements of isotopes of nitrogen, carbon, and argon, which reveal interesting clues about the evolution of the atmosphere. The bulk composition and thermal structure of the moon's upper atmosphere do not appear to have changed considerably since the Voyager 1 flyby.