Early processes underlying plant gravity sensing were investigated in rhizoids of Chara globularis under microgravity conditions provided by parabolic flights of the A300-Zero-G aircraft and of sounding rockets. By applying centrifugal forces during the microgravity phases of sounding rocket flights, lateral accelerations of 0.14 g, but not of 0.05 g, resulted in a displacement of statoliths. S...

Simultaneous measurements of mesospheric OH (6–2) Meinel and O2 (0–1) Atmospheric band emissions from a low-latitude station, Maui, Hawaii (20.8 N, 156.2 W) are utilized to study the wave characteristics and associated processes. Deduced temperatures show large variability in both OH and O2 data. The seasonal variability in the temperature shows a well-defined, semiannual type of oscillation, w...

A compact modulated birefringence-measurement system has been developed for use in microgravity fluid physics applications with non-Newtonian fluids such as polymer solutions. This instrument uses a dual-crystal transverse electro-optical modulator capable of modulation frequencies in excess of 100 MHz. The two crystals are modulated 180◦ out of phase from each other. The theoretical framework ...

We describe an algorithm for navigation state estimation during planetary descent to enable precision landing. The algorithm automatically produces 2D-to-3D correspondences between descent images and a surface map and 2D-to-2D correspondences through a sequence of descent images. These correspondences are combined with inertial measurements in an extended Kalman filter that estimates lander pos...