Armed with Science

Eyes On The Skies – Space Weather and Satellites

jtozer — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:09:26 +0000

This animation shows a magnetic reconnection event with proton aurora data from the IMAGE spacecraft. (Photo concept courtesy of NASA)

The Space Surveillance Network has been tracking space objects since 1957 when the Soviets opened the space age with the launch of Sputnik I. Since then, the SSN has tracked more than 24,500 space objects orbiting Earth.

Of that number, the SSN currently tracks more than 8,000 orbiting objects.

The rest have re-entered Earth’s turbulent atmosphere and disintegrated, or survived re-enty and impacted the Earth. The space objects now orbiting Earth range from satellites weighting several tons to pieces of spent rocket bodies weighing only 10 pounds.

About seven percent of the space objects are operational satellites, the rest are debris. USSPACECOM is primarily interested in the active satellites, but also tracks space debris. The SSN tracks space objects which are 10 centimeters in diameter (baseball size) or larger.

SSN Sensors

The SSN uses a “predictive” technique to monitor space objects; it spot checks them rather than tracking them continually. This technique is used because of the limits of the SSN (number of sensors, geographic distribution, capability, and availability).

Phased-array radars can maintain tracks on multiple satellites simultaneously and scan large areas of space in a fraction of a second. These radar’s have no moving mechanical parts to limit the speed of the radar scan – the radar energy is steered electronically.

Tracking and monitoring things like space weather and debris can help prevent issues, and can even keep our military satellites safe from storms and debris. Dr. Alex Young, Solar Physicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, explains how space weather could impact our military satellites, and how monitoring it – and developing new technology to understand it – can help the mission.

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Conventional radars use immobile detection and tracking antennas. The detection antenna transmits radar energy into space in the shape of a large fan. When a satellite intersects the fan, the energy is reflected back to the antenna, triggering the tracking antenna.

The tracking antenna locks its narrow beam of energy on the target and follows it in order to establish orbital data.

The Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance System (GEODSS) consists of three telescope sensors linked to a video camera. The video cameras feed their space pictures into a nearby computer which drives a display scope. The image is transposed into electrical impulses and recorded on magnetic tape. This is the same process used by video cameras. Thus, the image can be recorded and analyzed in real-time.

Combined, these types of sensors make up to 80,000 satellite observations each day.

This enormous amount of data comes from SSN sites such as Maui, Hawaii; Eglin, Florida; Thule, Greenland; and Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean. The data is transmitted directly to USSPACECOM‘s Space Control Center (SCC) via satellite, ground wire, microwave and phone. Every available means of communications is used to ensure a backup is readily available if necessary.

Information for this post provided by the U.S. Air Force Space Surveillance Network

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Jessica L. Tozer is a blogger for DoDLive and Armed With Science. She is an Army veteran an avid science fiction fan, both of which contribute to her enthusiasm for technology in the military.

Space Weather, Satellites and the Sun

jtozer — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:24:49 +0000

When service members go out on patrol, they keep a weather eye out for any dangers or unknown variables that might impact the mission. When space surveillance specialists go out on the job, they’re keeping an eye on the skies, and in more ways than one.

A beautiful prominence eruption producing a coronal mass ejection (CME) shot off the east limb (left side) of the sun on April 16, 2012. Such eruptions are often associated with solar flares, and in this case an M1 class (medium-sized) flare occurred at the same time, peaking at 1:45 PM EDT. The CME was not aimed toward Earth. (From NASA Goddard)

Space surveillance is a critical part of USSPACECOM‘s mission and involves detecting, tracking, cataloging and identifying man-made objects orbiting Earth, i.e. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentation debris.

Space surveillance can predict when and where a decaying space object will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and prevent a returning space object. To radar, these can look like a missile, and even trigger a false alarm from missile-attack warning sensors of the U.S. and other countries.

Therefore, it’s important that we monitor the skies as much as we monitor anything that impacts us as a nation, and in this case, as a planet.

Space surveillance can also chart the present position of space objects and plot their anticipated orbital paths. This means detecting new man-made objects in space, producing a running catalog of man-made space objects, determining which country owns a re-entering space object, and informing NASA whether or not objects may interfere with the space shuttle and Russian Mir space station orbits.

The command accomplishes these tasks through its Space Surveillance Network (SSN) of U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force operated, ground-based radar’s and optical sensors at 25 sites worldwide.

One of the things that affects our satellites – and something we have to be cognizant of – is space weather, and specifically, solar weather. Dr. Alex Young, Solar Physicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, explains how the sun is making scientific waves in our daily lives.

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Laser Weapons for Navy Ships

jtozer — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:50:54 +0000

We are getting closer and closer to the laser beam, I can feel it. A military scientist operates a laser in a test environment. The United states Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate conducts research on a variety of solid-state and chemical lasers. (U.S. Air Force)

I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.

The Navy…is getting LASER WEAPONS.

Eventually.

Okay, so it’s not right this second, but ONR is working to make it a reality. To help sailors defeat small boat threats and aerial targets without using bullets, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) wants to develop a solid-state laser weapon prototype that will demonstrate multi-mission capabilities aboard a Navy ship.

“We believe it’s time to move forward with solid-state lasers and shift the focus from limited demonstrations to weapon prototype development and related technology advancement,” said Peter Morrison, program officer of the Solid-State Laser Technology Maturation (SSL-TM) program.

ONR will host an industry day May 16 to provide the research and development community with information about the program. A Broad Agency Announcement is expected to be released thereafter to solicit proposals and bids.

The Navy’s long history of advancing directed-energy technology has yielded kilowatt-scale lasers capable of being employed as weapons. Among the programs, the Maritime Laser Demonstration developed a proof-of-concept technology that was tested at sea aboard a decommissioned Navy ship.

The demonstrator was able to disable a small boat target:

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Another program, the Laser Weapon System, demonstrated a similar ability to shoot down four small unmanned test aircraft.

The SSL-TM program builds upon ONR’s directed-energy developments and knowledge gained from other laser research initiatives, including the MK 38 Tactical Laser Demonstration tested at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

All of these efforts could help the Department of the Navy become the first of the armed forces to deploy high-energy laser weapons. And this, friends and readers, should be a top priority. First to the moon, first laser-armed Naval fleet. Hey, it seems like an intuitive progression to me.

Once we get the laser weapons down, we can start talking shop about phasers, yes?

Right?!

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Information for this article provided by the Office of Naval Research

Jessica L. Tozer is a blogger for DoDLive and Armed With Science. She is an Army veteran an avid science fiction fan, both of which contribute to her enthusiasm for technology in the military.

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ONR Awarding Top Dollar To Top Students

jtozer — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:22:47 +0000

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is awarding more than $160,000 in scholarships to a group of young scientists and engineers competing at Intel ISEF 2012, May 13-18 in Pittsburgh, Pa.

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) competition draws more than 1,500 students in grades 9 to 12 to showcase their independent research projects and vie for scholarships contributed by government, industry and academia.

“ONR is actively investing in the future by providing scholarships to these students, who represent some of the best and brightest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” said Dr. Anthony Junior, director, Department of the Navy Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority Institutions Program office. “They’re exactly the type of sharp, high achievers that we’ll need to solve problems for the Navy, Marine Corps and the nation.”

ONR’s prize money provides $8,000 Tuition Scholarship Awards to 17 top finishers, plus three awards in the amount of $4,000 each to participants with original research in critical, naval-relevant scientific areas, such as electrical engineering, environmental engineering and microbiology.

ONR also will present four $4,000 Tuition Scholarship Awards to three individuals and one two-member team to attend the London International Youth Science Forum in August. All recipients also receive a certificate signed by Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder and a miniature Lone Sailor statue.

ONR staff will be at Booth No. 402 to provide information about the organization’s many educational outreach programs.

Information for this article provided by the Office of Naval Research

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Lower The Telescope

jtozer — Sat, 12 May 2012 11:08:16 +0000

Testing Webb Telescope‘s OSIM and BIA Instruments – The OTE (Optical Telescope Element) Simulator or OSIM wrapped in a silver blanket on a platform, being lowered down into a vacuum chamber (called the Space Environment Simulator, or SES) by a crane to be tested to withstand the cold temperatures of space. (Photo Credit NASA Goddard/Chris Gunn)

The Math and Science of Seabees

jtozer — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:12:14 +0000

Navy personnel are setting a positive example for young people in Yokosuka, Japan, by teaching the importance of science, technology, engineering and math as it relates to everyday life. How did they do that? Real world experience, of course. Seabees demonstrated the importance and uses of math and science to girls from the Yokosuka Middle School.

Even building a Japanese lantern takes math skills:

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NRL Researchers Discover New Solar Feature

jtozer — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:23:53 +0000

This shows the locations of the STEREO-A and -B spacecraft in 2011 relative to the Sun, Earth, and SDO spacecraft. (Photo: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)

Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory have discovered a previously unreported solar feature – Coronal Cells – where high-temperature coronal emission is confined to discrete plumes that extend upward from unipolar concentrations of magnetic flux.

The NRL researchers think that future studies of these cellular regions will lead to an improved understanding of magnetic field line reconnection at the boundaries of coronal holes, and how these changes are transmitted outward into the solar wind. This research is published in the March 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

NASA provided financial support through their Heliophysics Guest Investigator Program and their Living With a Star Program.

Drs. Neil Sheeley and Harry Warren, researchers in NRL’s Space Science Division, describe these Coronal Cells as appearing in discrete bundles “like candles on a birthday cake.” The researchers discovered the cells in ultraviolet emission lines formed at temperatures around one-million degrees Kelvin.

Although the researchers made their discovery using high-resolution images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), they also observed the cells on ultraviolet images from STEREO-A and -B spacecraft recently, and from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) in 2000 near the previous sunspot maximum. In addition, they used Doppler images, constructed from the Extreme-Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on the Hinode spacecraft, to deduce that the outflow is faster at the centers of the cells than at their boundaries.

The researchers used time-lapse sequences of Fe XII 193 Å coronal images to follow these special regions as they were carried across the solar disk by the 27-day solar rotation.

Near disk center, the Coronal Cells looked like photospheric granules with bright centers and dark, narrow intercellular lanes. The cells appeared as long plumes of emission projecting toward the nearest solar limb. Moreover, simultaneous observations from the STEREO-B and SDO spacecraft, separated by about 90 degrees along Earth’s orbit around the Sun, showed the same plumes projecting in opposite directions.

Such stereoscopic views left no doubt that the Coronal Cells are columns of emission extending radially outward through the lower corona, like candles on a birthday cake.

The researchers addressed the question of how the Coronal Cells are lit and extinguished, and found that the visibility of the cells bears a close relation to the evolution of the adjacent coronal holes. The Coronal Cells appeared when the holes closed and disappeared when the holes opened.

This behavior suggested that coronal holes have the same cellular magnetic structure as the newly observed Coronal Cells, but that this structure is not visible until the encroachment of opposite-polarity flux causes some of the open magnetic flux in the holes to close. For coronal holes at the north and south poles of the Sun, this happens during the approach to sunspot maximum, which is the present time in our current 11-year sunspot cycle.

During the course of their research, Drs. Sheeley and Warren observed the occasional disappearance of cellular regions when solar filaments erupted alongside them. As the chromospheric ribbon swept across the region signaling the reconnection of the field lines that were opened during the eruption, the same cells reappeared immediately behind the ribbon.

This indicates that the plumes of material are established rapidly, in step with the reconnection of the associated magnetic fields.

The discovery of Coronal Cells has already increased our knowledge of coronal magnetic structure.

In the future, studies of the evolution of Coronal Cells may improve scientists’ understanding of magnetic field line reconnection at coronal-hole boundaries and its effects on the solar wind and Earth’s space weather.

Click here to read the full article

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Walking Tall – How New Prosthetics Are Changing The Game

jtozer — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:24:32 +0000

According to the Department of Defense, 1,453 service members have lost limbs since the start of the wars in 2001. Of those, 82% were lower extremity injuries. In spite of this, some wounded warriors are not letting their lack of limbs slow down their stride…literally.

Thanks to some advancements in technology, some of these injured troops have returned to active duty. A few of them even went back to the war. How’s that possible? Injured troops at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center are trying out a new type of computerized prosthetic that’s helping them to walk tall in more ways than one.

The Pentagon Channel explains:

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Developing More Lifelike Artificial Limbs

VA researchers constantly strive to improve the construction of prostheses, using leading edge technologies such as robotics, tissue engineering, and nanotechnology to create lighter limbs that closely mimic their natural counterparts. The integration of body, mind, and machine is a major guiding principle as VA specialists design and build artificial limbs that look, feel, and respond like natural arms and legs.

For more information about the VA and prosthetics, click here

Inspiring Future Leaders STEMS From Innovative Thinking

jtozer — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:05:18 +0000

Ms. Mariam Cocker, from Eleanor Roosvelt High School in Maryland, takes the controls of an F-35 Simulator, instructed by Lockheed Martin Fighter Demonstration Center.

The 317th Recruiting Squadron, based at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, recently started a program to inspire innovation and creativity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs. They challenged students in Washington D.C., Virginia and Maryland schools with a simple question: Why are STEM careers important to our Nation?

The squadron received an overwhelming response. Recruiters reached out with the Air Force STEM 2020 Challenge contest to hundreds of schools in the region. Upon learning of the program, counselors and teachers in Middle Schools and High Schools responded by posted the contest on their social media sites and web pages.

It went viral from there.

The 317 RCS received submissions from schools all over the DC, Virginia and Maryland area. Eventually, 20 outstanding essay writers were selected in April, and given “golden e-vites” to spend the day learning about innovation in the Department of Defense. They were each allowed to bring a parent with them. “This is the Willy Wonka” of STEM programs,” stated MSgt Buffy Brown, Air Force STEM 2020 coordinator.

Essay contest winners were invited to Washington D.C. for a day of innovation and exploration. They received insider tours of the Pentagon from senior strategy members assigned to the Joint Staff and Air Staff.

I believe we refer to this as the VIP tour.

Lt Col Steven Whitney, member of the Joint Staff JCS J8 and tour guide said, “It was a pleasure to welcome these future innovators, and given them a taste of what it is like to serve here. It was inspiring to spend time with our Nation’s future leaders.”

Following their visit to the Pentagon, the young innovators got their chance to show their stuff with America’s latest technology at the Lockheed Martin Fighter Demonstration Center in Crystal City, Virginia. They received in-depth briefings on the Air Force’s newest fighter aircraft, the F-35. Ms. Heather Penney, an Air National Guard fighter pilot and program director at Lockheed Martin, led the presentation.

Minutes later, senior Lockheed Martin reps, all former military fighter pilots, entered the room and escorted the students to state-of-the-art F-35 and F-22 simulator facilities. Looping and turning with the young prodigies, the former pilots shared intimate details of future fighter technology. They also shared their own flying experiences, ranging from combat encounters in Vietnam all way through both gulf wars.

Students shared their input as well, and talked about everything from advanced robotics to how tomorrow’s avionics ‘ought to work.’

“I saw a few future Top Guns in there,” said Ms. Penney, who has recently followed in her father’s footsteps and joined the world of sport aircraft racing in Nevada.

One of the most interesting exchanges occurred between Ms. Penny and one of youngest students in the group, 13 year old Rebecca Sobus. Ms. Penney said, “She was an outstanding leader, and took me to task on the future of manned and unmanned flight. I have to admit, she brought up some very compelling points!”

At the end of the day, the STEM 2020 Essay Winners left Air Force and Industry leaders with a comforting sense of America’s future. Lt Col Chaudhary, Commander of the 317th Recruiting Squadron, offered a final thought, “We often label our young folks these days as the ‘I, me’ Generation.”

However, I don’t see it that way. These future leaders have an incredible sense of the future. They really are our country’s next greatest generation–innovators with visions well beyond the capabilities of our current generation. They are the key to innovation in America. I can’t wait until AF STEM 2021, and see what the future holds.”

More information on the “AF STEM 2020 Challenge” Contest can be found here.

Written by MSgt Buffy Brown, 317th Recruiting Squadron

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Mobile App Helps Troops Adjust to Life After Combat

jtozer — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:35:23 +0000

The Department of Defense today announced the release of a mobile application to help service members adjust to life at home after returning from combat deployments.

Positive Activity Jackpot, developed by the National Center for Telehealth and Technology, uses augmented reality with a smart phone’s GPS to help find nearby activities and diversions for someone used to the high tempo of combat life.

The center, known as T2, used a behavioral therapy called pleasant event scheduling as the basis for design of the application. The therapy encourages a daily schedule of enjoyable activities to improve moods and overcome depression.

“After returning from a combat deployment, service members who are used to a more structured daily schedule may have difficulty adjusting to life at home,” said Dr. Amanda Edwards Stewart, psychologist who led the development of Positive Activity Jackpot. “This can lead to difficulties with relationships, depression and other problems. “

The application, available for Android systems, has an extensive list of pre-programmed activities.

Users select their activities and friends to accompany them from the phone’s contacts. Users can also let the application randomly choose an activity and friends by “pulling the lever” from the application’s slot-machine screen.

While pleasant event scheduling is commonly used in behavior therapy, Stewart said the app can be used by anyone, but should not be used as a substitute for professional treatment.

Information about Positive Activity Jackpot and a clinician’s guide is located here.

The National Center for Telehealth and Technology, located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA, serves as the primary Department of Defense office for cutting-edge approaches in applying technology to psychological health. Information about T2 is available here.

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