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Scientific paper
Jun 1993
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993opwr.rept.....g&link_type=abstract
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Earth Orbital Environments, Ice, Molecules, Optical Properties, Orbital Velocity, Photons, Space Shuttles, Spherules, Venting, Water, Water Vapor, Cameras, Collisions, Energy Budgets, Fragments, Lunar Luminescence, Rayleigh Scattering, Sublimation, Terrestrial Radiation, Tropical Regions
Scientific paper
Analysis of intensified video photographs of a twilight venting of excess water from the space shuttle showed that the approx. 1 mm diameter stream cavitationally fragments within about 1 m, forming two discrete-particle components and vapor. The images from nearby cameras are dominated by irregular, polydisperse water/ice droplets with sizes comparable with the venting orifice and outward velocity indistinguishable from that of the initially coherent liquid. In contrast the 2 1/2 km-long quasiconical trail imaged from a distant ground station consists of accompanying submicron ice spherules that were produced by partial recondensation of the overexpanded vacuum-evaporated water gas, which are sublimating at rates that we calculated from the measured falloff of axial sunlight-scatter radiance and the energy balance of progressively roughening ice at 329 km altitude; at low latitudes they cool to 180 K in less than 1 s, and their radii transition to the Rayleigh-scattering range in approx. 1 min. The very much larger fragmentation particles come to a slightly higher equilibrium temperature within approx. 2 min, and persist for a few earth orbits. These three components of the vented water (and other high vapor pressure liquids) radiate and scatter earthshine and solar photons, and the orbital-velocity molecules are also excited by collisions with the residual atmospheric gas, overlaying wide-angle contaminating foregrounds on remote optical sensing from onboard.
Gardner James A. II
Kofsky Irving L.
Rall David L.
Trowbridge Christian A.
Viereck Rodney A.
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