Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Amazing Videos of Earth at Night from Space
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/earth-at-night-videos/?pid=3120
Monday, January 23, 2012
Mystery surrounds Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane landing plan
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46091282/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.Tx1xAPn4V8E
The United States Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane has been circling Earth for more than 10 months, and there's no telling when it might come down.
As of Friday (Jan. 20), the mysterious robotic X-37B spacecraft has been aloft for 321 days, significantly outlasting its stated mission design lifetime of 270 days. But it may stay up for even longer yet, experts say, particularly if the military views this space mission — the second ever for the hush-hush vehicle — as something of an endurance test.
"Because it is an experimental vehicle, they kind of want to see what its limits are," said Brian Weeden, a technical adviser with the Secure World Foundation and a former orbital analyst with the Air Force.
A long mystery mission
The Air Force launched the X-37B in March 2011, sending the reusable space plane design on its second space mission. The X-37B now zipping around our planet is known as Orbital Test Vehicle-2, or OTV-2.
Another X-37B vehicle, the OTV-1, launched in April 2010 and landed in December of that year, staying on orbit for 225 days — well under the unmanned spacecraft's supposed 270-day limit. But OTV-2 has already exceeded that limit by more than seven weeks, and the calendar keeps turning over. [ Photos of the 2nd Secret X-37B Mission ]
Racking up a lot of time in space might be a key part of the current mission, according to Weeden.
"I think they didn't want to push it, just because it was the first of its kind," he told SPACE.com, referring to OTV-1's flight. "But I think that they are looking to push the second one."
The United States Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane has been circling Earth for more than 10 months, and there's no telling when it might come down.
As of Friday (Jan. 20), the mysterious robotic X-37B spacecraft has been aloft for 321 days, significantly outlasting its stated mission design lifetime of 270 days. But it may stay up for even longer yet, experts say, particularly if the military views this space mission — the second ever for the hush-hush vehicle — as something of an endurance test.
"Because it is an experimental vehicle, they kind of want to see what its limits are," said Brian Weeden, a technical adviser with the Secure World Foundation and a former orbital analyst with the Air Force.
A long mystery mission
The Air Force launched the X-37B in March 2011, sending the reusable space plane design on its second space mission. The X-37B now zipping around our planet is known as Orbital Test Vehicle-2, or OTV-2.
Another X-37B vehicle, the OTV-1, launched in April 2010 and landed in December of that year, staying on orbit for 225 days — well under the unmanned spacecraft's supposed 270-day limit. But OTV-2 has already exceeded that limit by more than seven weeks, and the calendar keeps turning over. [ Photos of the 2nd Secret X-37B Mission ]
Racking up a lot of time in space might be a key part of the current mission, according to Weeden.
"I think they didn't want to push it, just because it was the first of its kind," he told SPACE.com, referring to OTV-1's flight. "But I think that they are looking to push the second one."
Monday, December 12, 2011
Engineers from St. Louis share top-secret work on Cold War spy satellite
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/engineers-from-st-louis-share-top-secret-work-on-cold/article_f45ea666-936a-5a77-9b6c-ce39173538ba.html
Monday, May 16, 2011
Operation Crossbow: How 3D glasses helped defeat Hitler
Way cool:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13359064
Newly released photographs show how a team of World War II experts disrupted Nazi plans to bombard Britain - with the help of 3D glasses like those in modern cinemas.
Hitler's deadly V-1 and V-2 missiles were early but effective weapons of mass destruction - unmanned flying bombs which brought terror to southern England.
But their impact could have been all the more devastating - costing thousands more lives, lengthening the war and threatening the D-Day landings - were it not for the fact that British intelligence worked in three, rather than two, dimensions.
One of the Royal Air Force's most significant successes came with Operation Crossbow, when it tracked down, identified and destroyed many of the V-weapons which could have prolonged the war.
It did so by meticulously photographing the landscape of occupied Europe in a way that allowed officers to study every contour.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13359064
Newly released photographs show how a team of World War II experts disrupted Nazi plans to bombard Britain - with the help of 3D glasses like those in modern cinemas.
Hitler's deadly V-1 and V-2 missiles were early but effective weapons of mass destruction - unmanned flying bombs which brought terror to southern England.
But their impact could have been all the more devastating - costing thousands more lives, lengthening the war and threatening the D-Day landings - were it not for the fact that British intelligence worked in three, rather than two, dimensions.
One of the Royal Air Force's most significant successes came with Operation Crossbow, when it tracked down, identified and destroyed many of the V-weapons which could have prolonged the war.
It did so by meticulously photographing the landscape of occupied Europe in a way that allowed officers to study every contour.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Why on earth is cash-strapped Britain giving £1billion of aid to a country that can afford its own space programme?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1357118/Why-cash-strapped-Britain-giving-1bn-aid-India.html
Monday, January 31, 2011
Space Tracking
DoD Awards Two Space Fence Design Contracts Defense Daily 01/28/2011
Author: Marina Malenic
Raytheon [RTN] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] have each received a $107 million contract for preliminary design of a next- generation tracking radar that will monitor objects in space.
Under the terms of the Air Force deal, the companies are expected to complete preliminary design, performance analysis and prototype evaluation of a new Space Fence by next summer. All phases of the program are expected to cost up to $3.5 billion, according to budget documents, so a follow-on production contract could be worth upward of $3 billion. The Air Force plans to bring the system to operational capability by 2015.
The contractors submitted proposals for the project in November. Company executives at the time hailed competitive prototyping early in the development as a way of minimizing performance risk (Defense Daily, Nov. 19, 2010).
The United States operates a worldwide network of ground radars for space tracking, but the country's ability to monitor objects orbiting over the Southern hemisphere is quite limited, according to experts. The legacy system is called the Air Force Space Surveillance System and comprises three Very High Frequency radar transmission sites and six receive sites spread across the southern United States. It has been in service since the early 1960s.
In recent years, the lower orbits around Earth have become much more congested, and events like the 2009 collision of an Iridium communications satellite with a Russian satellite have resulted in more "space junk" on orbit that can be hazardous to satellites. The Air Force wants the new Space Fence to increase the number of objects it can track in low Earth orbit from around 20,000 objects today to 200,000 or more.
The air service has been studying options for replacing the VHF system for the past four years. In 2009, it awarded $30 million contracts to Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman [NOC] to conduct studies and prototyping.
Northrop Grumman's contract was terminated early last year after Congress cut $30 million from the program's funding in FY '10. According to the Air Force, the program manager had recommended continuing with the planned schedule by stopping funding for one of the three contractors rather than spreading the cut across all three, and delaying the program by six months or more.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and Australian defense chiefs last fall signed a pact in Melbourne for cooperation on space situational awareness activities, which could include placing U.S. radars in Australia (Defense Daily, Nov. 19, 2010). The United States plans to deploy two or three radars as part of the Space Fence. While the legacy radar is located entirely inside the continental United States, the next-generation system will likely be located entirely outside the country. The goal is to increase coverage over the southern hemisphere.
In addition to Australia, the Pentagon is considering sites on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean and Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean. A final decision is expected this year.
Author: Marina Malenic
Raytheon [RTN] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] have each received a $107 million contract for preliminary design of a next- generation tracking radar that will monitor objects in space.
Under the terms of the Air Force deal, the companies are expected to complete preliminary design, performance analysis and prototype evaluation of a new Space Fence by next summer. All phases of the program are expected to cost up to $3.5 billion, according to budget documents, so a follow-on production contract could be worth upward of $3 billion. The Air Force plans to bring the system to operational capability by 2015.
The contractors submitted proposals for the project in November. Company executives at the time hailed competitive prototyping early in the development as a way of minimizing performance risk (Defense Daily, Nov. 19, 2010).
The United States operates a worldwide network of ground radars for space tracking, but the country's ability to monitor objects orbiting over the Southern hemisphere is quite limited, according to experts. The legacy system is called the Air Force Space Surveillance System and comprises three Very High Frequency radar transmission sites and six receive sites spread across the southern United States. It has been in service since the early 1960s.
In recent years, the lower orbits around Earth have become much more congested, and events like the 2009 collision of an Iridium communications satellite with a Russian satellite have resulted in more "space junk" on orbit that can be hazardous to satellites. The Air Force wants the new Space Fence to increase the number of objects it can track in low Earth orbit from around 20,000 objects today to 200,000 or more.
The air service has been studying options for replacing the VHF system for the past four years. In 2009, it awarded $30 million contracts to Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman [NOC] to conduct studies and prototyping.
Northrop Grumman's contract was terminated early last year after Congress cut $30 million from the program's funding in FY '10. According to the Air Force, the program manager had recommended continuing with the planned schedule by stopping funding for one of the three contractors rather than spreading the cut across all three, and delaying the program by six months or more.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and Australian defense chiefs last fall signed a pact in Melbourne for cooperation on space situational awareness activities, which could include placing U.S. radars in Australia (Defense Daily, Nov. 19, 2010). The United States plans to deploy two or three radars as part of the Space Fence. While the legacy radar is located entirely inside the continental United States, the next-generation system will likely be located entirely outside the country. The goal is to increase coverage over the southern hemisphere.
In addition to Australia, the Pentagon is considering sites on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean and Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean. A final decision is expected this year.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Gotta Love That Russian Space Co-Operation...
and we traded the supercollider for the ISS:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/23/1131229
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/23/1131229
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Last Hubble Service Call
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051001513.html
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Space Weather- Not Just For Geeks Any- ZZZZZZT!
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/27/1256231
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
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