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

Well Hello There, Mars Rover

Filed under Featured, Robots, Space by jtozer on May 8, 2013 at 7:59 am {no comments}

There comes a time in every SciFi enthusiast’s life when you realize that you need to interview a robot in space.

It had to be done.

Now, I’ve interviewed a space robot before. I had a rousing conversation with Robonaut on Twitter last year. That was pretty fantastic, but it left me wanting to know more. I mean, these robots give me a glimpse into a life in space. Something that, barring an alien abduction, I won’t actually get to experience.

O hai there! (Photo Courtesy of The Mars Curiosity Rover Twitter profile)

So imagine my glee when I heard that the Mars Curiosity Rover had some time to answer some of my questions regarding life outside of this atmosphere.

I mean seriously. I think I might have actually shrieked a little.

For those of you who don’t know, the Curiosity Rover is pretty much a robot celebrity. She has over 1.3 million followers on Twitter, and over 500,000 followers on Facebook. Curiosity is a pretty big deal. And there’s a reason for that. Well several, really.

Curiosity is humanity’s extension on a foreign planet. She’s designed to help us better understand life, the universe and everything. And she does. With cleverness, scientific brilliance, and some witty, concise tweets, she brings us a little closer to our own Solar System. And what’s great is the work that the Curiosity Rover is doing is something that affects not just the science community. It affects us all.

Hey, even the DoD is involved in our reach toward the stars.

The Department of Defense has had a role in aerospace exploration for decades, and they’re still dedicated to it. Budget restraints and all. Recently senior Defense Department officials testified before Congress highlighting the activities the department has undertaken to save an estimated $1 billion and provide a balanced national security space program.

Air Force Lt. Col. Peter Garretson, the Division Chief for Air Force Irregular Warfare Strategy, Plans and Policy (and previously the Chief of Future Science and Technology Exploration for Air Force Strategic Planning) says humanity needs a billion year plan for space exploration.

Douglas L. Loverro, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, recently told Congress it is critical for the Defense Department to develop and implement space programs and policies to maintain U.S. space advantages in a perpetually changing environment.

From military satellites, to lasers, to GPS innovation and more, the advancements that are made in the aerospace industry benefit more than just us stargazers. The work that is being done is helping to shape the future of the human race.

Because when it comes down to it, space matters.

But don’t just take my word for it…

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Top Tech: Solar Blankets

Filed under Energy, Top Technology by jtozer on May 7, 2013 at 7:33 am {no comments}

The Top Tech series highlights the latest and greatest federal laboratory inventions that are available for transfer to business partners. Want to suggest an invention? Email us at science@dma.mil.

Flexible solar blanket of aSi solar cells. (photo provided by the Naval Research Laboratory)

Technology: High Power Flexible Solar Blankets

Agency: Naval Research Laboratory

What is better than a warm blanket on a cold night? How about a blanket that can produce energy by soaking up rays from the sun? We’re talking about the Naval Research Laboratory’s high power flexible solar blankets (or Blanket 2.0 I like to call it). The common comforter is getting an upgrade.

What is it?

It’s like a blanket on solar steroids. NRL is developing photovoltaics (solar cells) that combine high power output with lightweight and flexibility. It works by using crystalline, high efficiency multi-junction solar cells, which are lifted off the growth substrate and laid down onto a lightweight, flexible blankets. This forms a blanket with potentially three TIMES the power output of current technologies.

What does that mean?

This is, essentially, how we create portable solar panels.

Think about some of the advantages this blanket can have, starting with convenience. Being able to transport a regenerating power source that doesn’t weigh a ton is awesome. Also, given the particular environment with which troops tend to find themselves, using the natural resource of the sun just makes sense. It’s also eco-friendly, which means these blankets are in keeping with the Department of Defense’s going green initiative. They’re also more cost effective, since they’re designed to be used over and over again and they can recharge equipment in the field.

Truthfully, people in general could benefit from this technology. (more…)

First GPS NAVSTAR Satellite Goes on Display

Filed under Education & Culture, Scientific Military History, Technology by jtozer on May 6, 2013 at 7:13 am {no comments}

As of April 2013, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum began to examine the cultural and technological history of precise timekeeping and navigation at sea, in the air, and in space, and the impact of satellite navigation on our everyday lives. The exhibit, TIME and NAVIGATION, will explore ‘how revolutions in timekeeping over three centuries have influenced how we find our way.’

Originally designated TIMATION-IV, Navigation Technology Satellite-2 (NTS-2) was NRL’s final navigation satellite. The NRL navigation satellite successfully prepared the way for the GPS constellation with NTS-2 being the first satellite of the initial demonstration constellation of GPS satellites known as NAVSTAR.
(Photo: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)

On display, NTS-2 is the first satellite completely designed and built by NRL under GPS Joint Program funding—a working model was launched June 23, 1977, aboard an Atlas E/F rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

The first of a four-satellite constellation, NTS-2 was configured to demonstrate instantaneous navigation positioning.

The effect of relativity on the onboard cesium atomic clocks were measured and corrected so that a GPS receiver on Earth could observe that the rate of GPS time was the same as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The clock frequency stability specification of two parts per 10¹³was met.

NTS-2 was the first demonstration satellite in the NAVSTAR GPS constellation managed by the NAVSTAR GPS Joint Program Office at the Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.

Exploiting space-based systems of geodesy, navigation, and timing, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) research physicist, Roger Easton, laid the foundation for modern day global positioning systems — GPS.

Proving that a system using a passive ranging technique, combined with highly accurate [atomic] clocks, Easton developed the basis for a new and revolutionary navigation system with three-dimensional coverage (longitude, latitude, and altitude) around the globe.

Sponsored in 1964 by the Naval Air Systems Command, Easton tested his concepts of time-navigation, dubbed TIMATION, executing the development and launch of the TIMATION satellite in 1967.

With the deployment of three additional experimental satellites, TIMATION II in 1969; the first satellite to fly two rubidium standards, Navigation Technology Satellite (NTS-I) in 1974; and the first satellite to fly two cesium atomic frequency standards in a 12-hour GPS orbit, NTS-2, in 1977, Easton had unequivocally proven the practicality and unprecedented accuracy of satellite-based atomic clocks.

Using time measurements from NTS-2, Einstein’s theory of relativity was demonstrated, resulting in the need for a relativistic offset correction that remains in use by every satellite in the GPS constellation.

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Improving The Science Of Decision Making

Filed under Education & Culture by jtozer on May 5, 2013 at 7:37 am {no comments}

Defense Department personnel pride themselves on their decision-making ability, but Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman believes there are ways to systematically improve and help remove biases from the process.

Kahneman presented his opinions during the “New Ideas @ OSD” seminar in the Pentagon this morning. Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig moderated the discussion.

Defense leaders literally make life-or-death decisions. They decide how to spend billions of dollars of taxpayer money. They decide how best to approach leaders in other countries and how to best implement programs and policies.

Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 and wrote the New York Times bestseller “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” He said there are three elements in making decisions: options, judgments and evidence. The judgments and evidence feed into providing options, which constitute the crux of decision making.

Stressing the need for quality control in the process, Kahneman urged that defense leaders be aware of the role their biases play.

“Institutions in general can be viewed as factories that produce decisions,” he said. “When there is a production line, there is a need for something called quality control.”

He suggested a quality control checklist for decision making.

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Saturday Space Sight: Solar Electric Propulsion System

Filed under Photos, Space by jtozer on May 4, 2013 at 7:38 am {no comments}

Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) technologies is an essential part of future missions into deep space with larger payloads.

The use of robotics and advanced SEP technologies like this concept of an SEP-based spacecraft during NASA mission to find, rendezvous, capture and relocate an asteroid to a stable point in the lunar vicinity offers more mission flexibility than would be possible if a crewed mission went all the way to the asteroid.

NASA’s asteroid initiative, announced as part of the President’s FY2014 budget request, integrates the best of NASA’s science, technology, and human exploration capabilities and draws on the innovation of America’s brightest scientists and engineers.

It uses current and developing capabilities to find both large asteroids that pose a hazard to Earth and small asteroids that could be candidates for the initiative, accelerates our technology development activities in high-powered SEP and takes advantage of our hard work on the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, helping to keep NASA on target to reach the President’s goal of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s.

Image Credit: Analytical Mechanics Associates

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When Minutes Matter Most

Filed under Technology, Videos by jtozer on May 3, 2013 at 7:36 am {no comments}

The Naval Research Laboratory supported both the 2009 and 2013 Presidential Inaugurations with a technology called CT-Analyst, developed by researchers in the Laboratory for Computational Physics and Fluid Dynamics.

In the event of a chemical, biological, or radiological incident, CT-Analyst is designed to provide first-responders with a tool that can provides accurate, instantaneous, three-dimensional predictions of chemical, biological, & radiological agent transport in urban settings.

Video provided by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory YouTube Channel

CT-Analyst can provide answers to first responders in approximately 0.05 seconds versus computational fluid dynamics models, which can take one to two hours to run per scenario. CT-Analyst also provides more detailed information, quicker, and with better results than industry accepted “Puff/Plume” models that take several minutes to run.

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Discovering DARPA

Filed under Featured, Technology by jtozer on May 2, 2013 at 7:19 am {no comments}

(Graphic photo provided by DARPA)

If you’re familiar with the advancements in science and technology in any way, chances are you’ve heard a thing or two about the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. You might know them better by their buzzworthy acronym DARPA.

Ah, DARPA.

Mother of the cheetah robot. Creator of magnificent stealth machines. Problem solving with science so spectacular it brings science fiction to life in front of our very eyes. Yes, this agency is one that makes my life – all our lives, really – more exciting. As a science journalist, the word DARPA is to me what the word Enterprise is to a Star Trek convention: immediately interesting and intrinsically on topic.

But for as much as I love the robotastic DARPA, there are a lot of people who don’t really know what the agency is, or what they do.

That, my friends, is about to change.

Surprising satellite was surprising. Also, frankly, pretty neat looking, too.

Let’s start with a little bit of history. In 1957, the Soviet Union surprised the world with their launch of Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial Earth satellite. Shortly after that (in 1958), President Eisenhower founded the Advanced Research Projects Agency – what we now know as DARPA. It’s mission? To be at the forefront of scientific and technological development. Basically, he wanted to make sure that there would be no more, ahem, surprises.

Basically, this institution was designed to put the government in a position where they would be seeking and exploring science and technology, rather than learning about it second hand.

And now, 55 years later, they’re still doing just that.

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They Are Listening

Filed under Cyber Security, Logistics by jtozer on May 1, 2013 at 7:54 am {no comments}

Even high in the air, they have their ears close to the ground.

Tech. Sgt. Justin Longway checks a patch panel aboard an EC-130 Compass Call March 23, 2013, at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. The 41st EECS flies nightly missions in support of troops on the ground. Longway is an airborne maintenance technician with the 41st Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron . (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. David Dobrydney)

Linguists from the 41st Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron, are trained in the art of employing electronic attack for the purpose of denying, degrading and disrupting enemy communications from aboard the EC-130 Compass Call.

“We’re a precision electronic attack platform,” said Tech. Sgt. Dallas Allen, a cryptologic language analyst with the 41st EECS. “We can go out and … stop (the enemy) from communicating with each other.”

When on a mission, the airmen of the Compass Call employ precision electronic attack capabilities in support of U.S. and coalition tactical air, surface and special operations forces.

“You really have to have a lot of confidence in yourself when it comes to identifying certain kinds of communications,” Allen said.

“Sometimes you’ll be listening and think ‘did I just hear him say that, or did I expect him to say that?’”

The linguists’ confidence comes from the amount of practice they go through while at home station, Allen said.

“We have to spend hours in the listening lab studying our language,” he said. “We go to simulations and that’s where we’re able to hone our skills. We listen to known communications so we can practice identifying them.”

The linguist career field is relatively small and with the group of linguists who fly, even smaller. Allen said there are probably less than 1,000.

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