Rocket tracers, nightime (via NASA)

In the military, soldiers sometimes use tracer rounds to help them direct fire onto an opposing target. The tracer projectile uses a pyrotechnic charge that makes the bullet burn brightly and therefore visible to the naked eye. NASA has taken a page from the military’s tracer principal and adapted it to their ATREX (Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment) program.

Five rockets were launched in succession 80 seconds apart to study the Jetstream at high altitude (65 miles up) but keeping an eye on the rockets is difficult to say the least. In order to maintain a better visual lock-on of the sounding rockets (2 X Terrier-Improved Malemutes, 2 X Terrier-Improved Orions and 1 Terrier-Oriole), NASA equipped each with a chemical tracer (unknown as to what chemical) that formed a ‘milky white cloud’ at altitude that enabled researchers to visually see the wind speeds found at that height as well as the rockets trajectory. Two of the five rockets launched carried weather instrumentation (I suspect human subjugation tech as well) that measured temperature, pressure and wind speed to better understand Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Tracers or further fodder for the "Chemtrail Conspiracy?"

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Soldier sets up UAV communication system in Afganistan

Big bandwidth, 4G, wireless networks are popping up everywhere these days; it is almost hard to find an area that does not have a fast connection. That is not the case for our men and women fighting on foreign battlefields like Afghanistan. Wireless networks out there are hard to come by even at 3G speeds. Wars are won with information. Having soldiers connected is paramount.

Slow data speeds will soon be a problem of the past though as DARPA’s (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) STO (Strategic Technology Office) looks to bring 4G level connections to even the most remote of battlefields. To do this, DARPA plans on using their Mobile Hotspots program that uses a millimeter-wave communications platform (wavelength of 10 to 1mm.) This system will be implemented in air vehicles as well as ground and will be able to give the war-fighter the speed of a typical 4G fixed tower, which is about a gigabit per second, without the infrastructure (kind of hard to hide a cell-tower in a war zone). The Mobile Hotspots program will also utilize DARPA’s ‘Fixed Wireless at a Distance program' which is essentially a high-performance cell tower that’s placed in a protected area like a forward operating base (FOB). This work is being looked at to boost UAV transmission power in hopes to extend the range.

DARPA Program manager Dick Ridgway explained how they will get up and running, "Mobile Hotspots will require the development of steerable antennas, efficient millimeter-wave power amplifiers, and dynamic networking to establish and maintain the mobile data backhaul network. We anticipate using commercial radio protocols, such as WiFi, WiMax or LTE [Long Term Evolution], as a cost-effective demonstration of the high-capacity backbone.  However, the millimeter-wave mobile backbone developed during this program will be compatible with other military radios and protocols.”

"The principle of strategy is having one thing, to know ten thousand things." - Miyamoto Musashi (Book of Five Rings)

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(Left) U.S. Military predator drone (Right) Civilian drone filming the riots in Poland over the ACTA signing

UAVs have been all over the news in recent months, with the recent acquisition of military grade surplus for both federal and law enforcement agencies. For them, it is legal to fly those in most major cities. For civilians, it’s a different story, as a California based realty company found out when the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) scolded them for using UAV’s to make promo videos for potential customers. Even hobbyists in the model airplane realm have had it rough. Federal rules dictate they can only fly them in designated areas and with a predetermined height.

However, this might change as the United States Senate has introduced legislature that would require the FAA to revise its rules concerning private UAVs. Included in this legislation are altitude revisions for drones that weigh up 55 pounds, that is meant to avoid collisions with commercial aircraft. That situation happens more frequently than you might think. August 2011 saw a collision of a Shadow drone and a C-130 over Afghanistan.

Airline pilots are voicing their concern with the revision as they have to achieve a certain amount of flight hours while drone pilots do not. They feel that UAV pilots should have to meet the same standards as human controlled aircraft. There is also the concern of crashing into residential areas as it is not uncommon for UAVs to suffer catastrophic malfunctions and plummet to the earth. Rules and at least a few test sites are already in place with full implementation of regulations coming in three years. Let the spying begin!

Read more about the FAA rulings after this link.

Also, get in on the UAV scene with DARPA's open UAVforge competition.

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GRAIL probes render. (via NASA)

According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, there are over 9800+ man-made objects orbiting the Earth. As many now know, this is becoming an issue. Our reach does not stop at our geosynchronous orbits, the Earth's moon now has two satellites.

NASA launched two satellites that, as of December 31, 2011 and January 1, 2012, have taken their positions around the moon. The "GRAIL probes" launched back in September of 2011 for the dubious sole-goal of mapping the moon's gravitational field. The mission principal scientist, MIT's Maria Zuber, said the purpose best, "We don't actually know why the near side and far side are different."

Circling the moon at 55 km above its average surface, the GRAIL probes will use microwave signals to measure the distance between themselves that changes based on the gravitational differences on the surface of the planet.  Accuracy will be within a width of a human-hair. According to NASA, the maps will be "100 times" better than previous recorded near side gravity maps, and "1000 times" for the far side. Zuber again, "When we can improve by a factor of two, we can learn a lot, and improving by a factor of 1000 is transformative."

Currently the probes are collecting "better than expected" energy via their solar panels. Zuber stated that the team believes that the GRAIL satellites should be able to store enough energy to stay functional during the pending lunar eclipse in June of 2012. At which time the team will lower the probes to 25 km above the surface a perform a "treetop-skimming" study of the structures of craters. External mapping and internal structure are

Another purpose of the mission is to prove, or dis-prove, the University of California's claim that the Earth had two moons at one time. Where the current moon collided with its smaller, 1300 km diameter, sibling at low speeds. Where, instead of forming a typical crater, the strike merged the two. The far side is more mountainous that the front, and they aim to get to the bottom of the mystery.

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(From 2011)

It's a BIRD?.. It's a PLANE? It is the latest in war technology. The U.S. Military released new details about their most recent test flight of a prototype aircraft named, Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2). During the August 11^th demo flight, officials announced the HTV-2 separated smoothly from the Minotaur IV launch vehicle. It flew on to break records.

HTV-2 is a part of the Conventional Prompt Global Strike which is an advance weapon program. The program is working to develop systems to reach its destination anywhere in the world within one hour of dispatch.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was on-sight to oversee the flight  and collect a massive amount of data about the flight. According to DARPA the HTV-2 was able to be controlled for several minutes while traveling effortlessly through the air to about 13,000 mph. Officially  billed as the fastest aircraft ever built.

Traveling to speeds up to 13,000 mph there is a grantee of high temperatures inside  and out of the aircraft. The HTV-2 reached up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,927 degrees Celsius) at times during flight.

DARPA was able to capture the "mouth dropping flight" on amera. DARPA director Regina Dugan stated, “We were fortunate to also obtain handheld camera footage of the HTV-2 flight. It gives us a visceral feel for what it means to fly at Mach 20."

It may be able to set flight but still there are many tweaks to be made to HTV-2. Officials said more than 20 air, land, sea and space data collections systems tracked the craft during the test flight. Now it is onward for our military scientists. The next version awaits. (I find it odd they were so public about this vehicle and test.)

Update: During the test flight, Darpa lost contact with the HTV-2 hypersonic aircraft. After an exhaustive search, nothing was found, and DARPA went silent on the issue. They release this statement, "Range assets have lost telemetry with #HTV2. More to follow.”

Eavesdropper

Conceptual landing of a SpaceX Falcon rocket

There is a design for a "green rocket" that will not make a big impact on the planet, literally. A private space firm, SpaceX, has designed a rocket called the falcon, a reusable payload rocket. Currently, the falcon rocket is sent into space, and after it delivers its payload, the rest of the hardware is discarded.

In the past NASA had recovered and refurbished rocket segments from oceanic spashdown, but their refurbishment process was so labor-intensive that it was more of a financial liability than a money saver. So, how is the falcon project any different think of a rocket launch a reverse a rocket landing? The nearly-empty first stage rocket will reignite some of its engines to turn around and come back to its launch site, and will then land vertically on rocket power, softly, on its tripod landing gear. SpaceX aims to have the second stage also re-enter behind a heat shield on its nose, and do the same vertical rocket landing.

Brute force methods almost always trump the more elegant and complicated solutions. SpaceX's vertical landing is definitely leaning towards a clean and elegant rocket recovery. If this does have some success, we can expect a revolution in rocket procedures.

SpaceX has a near-term goal of being another way to take astronauts to the International Space Station, aside from the Russian Space Program. The long-term vision for SpaceX is round trip human visit to Mars.

Eavesdropper

A friend of mine asked the old question, "where are our flying cars?"

Michael Moshier and Robert Bulaga concept flying car

After a quick search I found a promised flying car from the founders of Trek Aerospace. A brief history of their greatest project to date. The SoloTrek XFV was a single person vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL). The XFV was able to maintain fright for 2 hours with maximum speeds of 100km/h. Overall, the XFV travelled 200km. The special duct design of the shrouded propellers gives more lift that any other system of similar size.

On one test in December 2002, a tether used to hold the XFV down was sucked into one of ducts. Although crashing to the ground, the pilot was fine but the XFV was not. With the craft completely destroyed, they were not able to meet the schedule and lost funding. Later, the team developed the Springtail EFV (exoskeleton flying vehicle) for a $5 million dollar DARPA contract. The Springtail EFV finished and this contract was completed. See video of the Springtail EFV below. Other unmanned drones were created with this tech. One looked like an X-wing fighter from Star Wars. (The original SoloTrek XFV is on display at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California)

X-Wing style drone

Now the Trek team, Michael Moshier (aircraft designer) and Robert Bulaga (test-pilot) now want to make a hybrid electric/fuel flying car. Moshier said, "Ever since the Jetsons, we’ve been promised that an air car is just around the corner. But the technologies and knowledge necessary to build such a machine have not been available – until now. And it will be developed here in the USA." However, at the moment the team is busy trying to raise funding for the project.

They are targeting the early use of the flying car in third world countries as a quick medical evacuation vehicle, search and rescue, and police patrol. Sounds straight out of science fiction.

However, perhaps the world is not ready for flying cars. My friend said it best, "people can't even drive safely in two axis, do we really want to give them a third?"

Eavesdropper

Need a jet pack style aircraft now? They are available. Check out the following blog posts.

Jet-wing jetpack test flight.

Jet pack for the work commute.

What happens when the brains of a thermal engineer from NASA and a professor from Chicago's Illinois Institute of Technology synergize? An electrohydrodynamic (EHD)-based thermal control system is born.

Jeffery Didion, a thermal engineer at the NASA Goddard space flight center, and Dr. Jamal Seyed-Yagoobi, a professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, with technical partnerships with the U.S. Air Force and National Renewable Energy Laboratory have collaborated and created a thermal control that uses no mechanical pumps, nor any other moving parts. The EHD pump operates on the electro-fluid-dynamic principle, also known as electrokinetics. A shaped electrostatic field is produces which creates a hydrostatic pressure in the coolant. This forces the hot fluid through tiny ducts, like a radiator, inside a thermal cold plate away from sensitive circuitry. Size, weight, and power is saved versus conventional pumps. Overall power consumption of the device is in the half watt range. The EHD pump can be scaled for the application.

Currently the team is exploring other substrates, materials, and micro-fabrication techniques to reduce the size and increase the durability of the EHD pump. A prototype is scheduled to be sent to the International Space Station in 2013.

Eavesdropper