Armed with Science | Providing You Information on Military Science and Technology

Army Reserve Working To Reduce Wasted Energy

Filed under Energy by jtozer on March 7, 2013 at 7:10 am {no comments}

Fort Brag’s Directorate of Public Works partnered with Army Reserve’s Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 169th Aviation Regiment on an existing training mission to see where light energy was being wasted in an effort to reduce Fort Bragg’s energy consumption. (U.S. Army photo by Timothy Hale/Released)

In an ongoing effort to save taxpayer dollars, the post’s Directorate of Public Works reached out to Army Reserve aviation for help.

Garrison energy officials figured the best way to look for wasted energy was to go up – literally.

Partnering with the Army Reserve’s Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 169th Aviation Regiment, based at Simmons Army Airfield, a DPW official boarded a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during a previously-scheduled night training mission to find the hotspots on post.

The mission to find wasted light energy was in response to a Jan. 23, 2013, memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy, and Environment. The memo outlines the way ahead for installations to save energy costs and holds commanders “accountable for energy use in the facilities they occupy.”

Gregory Bean, the garrison DPW director, said this Army-wide effort ties directly into the utility consumption reports his office sends out to organizations on Fort Bragg.

“If you don’t take ownership of your costs, you will never conserve,” Bean said. “If you don’t know what it costs to operate your facility, it’s not real to you. What we’re trying to do is showcase where we are wasting energy … and encourage you to conserve energy and conserve costs.”

What is the best way to find who is wasting energy?

Fly over an installation at night, take photographs of areas in question, and see who is unnecessarily burning the midnight oil, so to speak.

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Detecting Nuclear Tests With Radio Telescopes

Filed under Space, STEM, Technology by jtozer on March 6, 2013 at 7:04 am {no comments}

The VLA is a radio-frequency interferometer consisting of 27, 25-m dish antennas configured in an inverted “Y” with “arms” extending to the north, southeast, and southwest. The antennas are periodically cycled through four configurations, A, B, C, and D (its most compact configuration), spanning 36, 11, 3.4, and 1 kilometer[s], respectively. (Photo: NRAO/AUI)

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory radio astronomer, Joseph Helmboldt, Ph.D., and researchers at Ohio State University Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering analyzed radio telescope interferometry and Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) data recorded of the ionosphere during one of the last underground nuclear explosions (UNEs) in the U.S., codenamed Hunters Trophy.

Situated in the Plains of San Agustin, 50 miles west of Socorro, New Mexico, twenty-seven 25-meter parabolic dish antennas collectively make up the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope.

The VLA is an interferometer, meaning it operates by multiplying the data from each pair of telescopes together to form interference patterns.

The structure of those interference patterns, and how they change with time as the earth rotates, reflect the structure of radio sources in the sky.

Designed as a radio synthesis telescope, observing bands between 1 and 50 gigahertz (GHz), the VLA is chiefly used to observe cosmic sources. While such observations require detailed calibration schemes to remove the effects of the ionosphere, this calibration data is seldom used to actually study the ionosphere.

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Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System Scores Another Hit

Filed under Featured, STEM by jtozer on March 5, 2013 at 7:44 am {no comments}

This photo is pretty impressive. The story behind it is even more impressive.

A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block 1A interceptor is launched from the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) during a Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Navy test in the Pacific Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo/Released)

It shows the test of the Navy’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, the sea-based component of the Missile Defense Agency’s Ballistic Missile Defense System.

So what happened during this joint MDA and Navy test?

At 11:10 p.m. HST last Tuesday, a medium-range ballistic missile target was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, on Kauai, Hawaii.
The target flew northwest towards a broad ocean area of the Pacific Ocean.
The in-orbit Space Tracking and Surveillance System-Demonstrators detected and tracked the target.

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Air Force ‘Harnessing The Right Technology’

Filed under Cyber Security, STEM by jtozer on March 4, 2013 at 7:47 am {no comments}

The Air Force Space Command commander announced implementation steps in the Air Force’s efforts to heighten the Air Force‘s mobile operational potential of its airmen and the real-time functionality of its executives.

The first stage of distribution of mobile devices is focused on delivering approximately 10,000 devices.

“We are providing tools to enhance operational capabilities for our airmen,” Gen. William L. Shelton said, the Air Force Space Command commander. “Harnessing the right technology from both the public and private sectors plays an important role in these efforts.”

As a part of its plans to improve mobile communications, all Air Force major commands were notified last month of an initial operational capability rollout that includes mobile solutions for smart phone and tablet users. The program represents an element of an integrated and collaborative effort across the Air Force and the Department of Defense.

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Into The Fray: Sergeant Earns Soldier’s Medal For Saving Life

Filed under Education & Culture by jtozer on March 3, 2013 at 7:15 am {no comments}

Lt. Gen. Charles T. Cleveland (left), the commander of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, presents Staff Sgt. Tyrone A. Mitchell of the 8th Military Information Support Battalion, with the Soldier’s Medal. Mitchell received the medal for his actions in rescuing the driver of a car involved in an automobile accident. (photo by Andrew Tate)

A soldier with the Army Special Operations Command was awarded the Soldier’s Medal for saving the life of a civilian in Spring Lake, N.C., by pulling her from the inside of her vehicle after she’d been in an accident that left her unconscious.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone A. Mitchell, 8th Military Information Support Battalion, received the Soldier’s Medal during a ceremony at the U.S. John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. Lt. Gen. Charles T. Cleveland, the commander of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, presented the award.

Mitchell earned the medal for his actions May 20, 2012, when, while heading to the store in Spring Lake, N.C., he saw an overturned vehicle on the side of the road. He pulled off the road and went to assess the situation. He noticed that the driver of the car was unconscious and that there was a haze in the car.

Not knowing if the smoke was from a fire or just the remnants of debris from the airbag being deployed, he told a passerby to phone in for help and rushed to the car.

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Saturday Space Sight: Flux Ropes on the Sun

Filed under Photos, Space by jtozer on March 2, 2013 at 7:40 am {no comments}

This is an image of magnetic loops on the sun, captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). It has been processed to highlight the edges of each loop to make the structure more clear.

A series of loops such as this is known as a flux rope, and these lie at the heart of eruptions on the sun known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs.) This is the first time scientists were able to discern the timing of a flux rope’s formation. (Blended 131 Angstrom and 171 Angstrom images of July 19, 2012 flare and CME.)

Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO

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MMO War Games For The Military

Filed under Technology, Videos by jtozer on March 1, 2013 at 7:35 am {no comments}

There aren’t a lot of jobs that would allow (I said ALLOW) you to play MMOs at work. This should come as no surprise, though; clearly there are reasons for that. There are, however some careers that welcome massively multiplayer online gaming as a part of their work week. Video game designers. Blizzard employees. Escapist Magazine reviewers. The Navy.

Yeah. You read that right. The U.S. Navy.

Ah-ah-ah, not so fast shipmates. This doesn’t mean you can abandon your proverbial (or in some cases literal) ship and hop online to help your guild blaze through the next dungeon.

Okay, lemme explain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Introducing the Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet (MMOWGLI) exercise. Ha. Only the military could create such a crazy acronym for an already complicated acronym to describe online gaming.

Anyway…

MMOWGLI is a joint effort between the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) and Institute for the Future (IFTF). It’s an online game designed to crowd source ideas and strategies that may provide insight into some of the Navy’s toughest problems.

Combining the military mission with online gaming, MMOWGLI creates an environment where players are asked to share new ideas and collaborate with others to earn innovation points and win the game.

The em2 MMOWGLI round that’s currently being played is an effort to generate innovative ideas advancing the Navy’s capabilities in the electromagnetic spectrum.

“em2 MMOWGLI is my first crowd sourcing experience and an idea that I viewed with skepticism before joining the fray,” says Gerald O’Donnell, concepts developer at Navy Warfare Development Command. “Experiencing the game has made me a believer.”

Here are the details:

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Future Soldiers Will Have Flexible Electronics Everywhere

Filed under STEM, Technology by jtozer on March 1, 2013 at 7:31 am {no comments}

Future soldiers will have plastic electronic sensors embedded in their helmets and uniforms. Research has brought electronics to flexible plastic through the combined efforts of industry, academia and Army scientists. (Photo Credit: Conrad Johnson, RDECOM Public Affairs)

More than 10 years ago, U.S. Army researchers saw potential in flexible displays. With nothing in the marketplace, the Army decided to change that by partnering with industry and academia to create the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University.

The Army’s goal was to get this amazing technology into the hands of soldiers.

The Army established a research center with industry and universities in 2004. Fast forward nine years. Teams of researchers have scored significant breakthroughs and racked up more than 50 patents. The original goal of the program may soon be met.

“We were starting to develop a lot of new kinds of electronic gizmos to help soldiers,” said Nick Colaneri, center director. “The problem was, they all needed displays. Flat displays today are made out of glass. Glass is heavy and it breaks. So, we’re all about getting the glass out of displays.”

Researchers say the most important result was figuring out how to put conventional electronics onto plastic using existing electronics manufacturing equipment. This manufacturing breakthrough opened a world of possibilities.

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