NLSI Directors Seminar Series: Robert MacDowall, NASA/GSFC
Date/Time: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 9:00AM PST, 17:00 UTC
Presenter: Robert MacDowall, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD
Abstract: Solar radio burst imaging from the lunar surface – ROLSS and ROLSS-Pathfinder The lunar surface is often identified as a prime location for acquiring radio observations at frequencies below the terrestrial ionospheric cutoff or for lunar far-side observatories that would be shielded from terrestrial radio interference. Here, we consider a candidate observatory for solar radio burst imaging below 10 MHz. The Radio Observatory on the Lunar Surface for Solar studies (ROLSS) ) consists of 3 arms of thin polyimide film, each 500 m in length, radiating from a central hub, providing ~2 deg angular resolution at 30-m wavelength (10 MHz). Each arm includes 16 dipole antennas, consisting of metal deposited on the film and transmission lines connecting them to receivers at the central hub. These arms could be unrolled using a crewed or robotic rover. The data collected by the antennas are processed at the central hub and down-linked to Earth for final radio image synthesis. This antenna system is uniquely suited to the low mass and low volume requirements for delivery to the lunar surface. In this presentation, we review the scientific goals of ROLSS and their relationships to heliophysics, the hardware components that ROLSS requires, the current status and work to be completed, and the role of a pathfinder mission to provide mission risk reduction at a modest cost.
The ROLSS concept study was funded by the NASA Lunar Sortie Science Opportunities (LSSO) program. The LUNAR consortium (Jack Burns, P.I.) is funded by the NASA Lunar Science Institute to investigate concepts for astrophysical observatories on the Moon.
Biography:
Robert MacDowall received his B.A. with Honors (Physics) from Swarthmore College in 1978 and his Ph.D. (Astronomy) from University of Maryland, College Park, in 1989. He has worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) from 1979 until the present – first as an employee of Computer Sciences Corp. and other contractor companies, then as a NASA civil servant. During his years at GSFC, he has worked in the fields of solar and planetary radio astronomy, analyses of the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic fields, and plasma wave physics. He is currently the Lab Chief for the Planetary Magnetosphere Laboratory. Other recent or ongoing responsibilities include the Ulysses Unified Radio & Plasma Wave Investigation (P.I.), Solar Probe Plus Magnetometers (Co-I), Interstellar Boundary Explorer (Mission Scientist), NASA Lunar Science Institute/LUNAR team (Co-I), WIND/WAVES (Co-I), STEREO/WAVES (Co-I), Cassini/RPWS (Co-I) and Radiation Belt Storm Probes Magnetometers. In addition, his interests include space-based radio aperture synthesis imaging from space by microsatellite cluster or from the surface of the moon.
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