The Atmospheric Neutral Density Experiment (ANDE) NASA/AMS Presentation

"Dropping our 'perfect spheres' from the International Space Station".....
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"The Atmospheric Neutral Density Experiment (ANDE) flight is a mission by the Naval Research Laboratory to monitor the thermospheric neutral density at an altitude of 350 km. The primary mission objective is to monitor total neutral density along the orbit for improved orbit determination of resident space objects, with a secondary objective to provide a test object for US Space Surveillance Network assets.

The mission consists of two spherical spacecraft fitted with retro-reflectors for satellite laser ranging (SLR). Each spacecraft contains a small light-weight payload designed to determine the spin rate and orientation of the spacecraft from on-orbit measurements and from ground based observations. Instrumentation onboard one of the ANDE2 spacecraft will measure the in-situ neutral and plasma densities.

This paper presents a mission overview and emphasis will be placed on the scientific results and comparison with solar and geomagnetic drivers as well as other neutral density measuring techniques (CubeSat, SSULI, etc...)."

http://ams.confex.com/ams/90annual/techprogram/paper_164432.htm
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I won't pretend to know what experiments they might want to carry out that would require them to know the atmospheric density in the first place, nor what they are talking about when he gets into the specifics of the modeling and number crunching stuff. From what I can extract outta this crazyness is:

They need to know the most close-to-accurate current atmospheric density at
any given time, and they need the computer to be able to accurately model
the most likely outcomes of subsequent experiments they would then carry out
under given conditions. So they are tuning the guitar, so-to-speak... I have an outline filled with a blank o.o

ASIDE FROM THAT, I WANNA CATCH ME ONE OF THEM SPACE PO'-KEE-BALLS!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• ams
• nasa
• atmospheric
• density
• orbs
• probes
• spheres

[EminentDisclosure]

I didnt check to see if anyone has said it already but, now the govt can have an excuse for the orbs they catch on video from the space shuttle and other places.. lol

BTW LOVE your humor Sheila! :-)

[NLS4REAL]

spheres eh, orbs..ufo's maybe I see what they did thar!

[leroysky96]

Love yer' vids,take it easy.

[Sheilaaliens]

@musabe9 kind of but no not really... that thing was mangled up and metal and big and ugly.. these little spheres are much smaller with electronics all within and on them, and of course they have GPS installed so they wouldn't ever get lost...

[dickylobster]

The science of watching space balls. Nice job if your a rocket scientist.

[METALLICA6547]

@Sheilaaliens ok thanks, ive been checking people's weather vids today just trying to see whats happening around the country,just watched a cool one from commando602 i think that is his name he is in AZ filmed a moonsoon style storm ,very neat looking storm

[Sheilaaliens]

@METALLICA6547 browsing through the AMS recorded presentations.. not sure what search term I was looking up but it didn't have anything to do with nasa or anything, just got lucky and found it (this presentation vid)

[METALLICA6547]

@Sheilaaliens yea that was some good info,how did you find out about these things anyway?

[METALLICA6547]

@Sheilaaliens no but thanks for saying somthing i was going to watch it and forgot,thanks! :)

[Sheilaaliens]

@METALLICA6547 did ya see the video response to this vid? o.0 he was on to something, not all the way on but he was on to it