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Category: military – Page 196

The Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW) program has been killed by the US Air Force as the service looks to make budget cuts in the area of hypersonic prototyping in the coming year.

Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek revealed Monday that budget pressure, rather than performance, influenced the service’s decision to abandon its HCSW program and continue its development of the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) — its other hypersonic weapon program.

“We will continue to work collaboratively with our sister services to see how we can most effectively leverage each other’s capabilities, ensuring the most prudent use of taxpayer dollars,” she said in a statement emailed to Defense News on February 10.

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There are many satellites in space and we know which launch put most of them up there. But there are a number of them that are not associated with a specific launch, though it would be desirable to identify which put them into orbit. This article is about a technique which could help associate objects in space with particular launches, one that I am currently developing. But let’s start with some background information: what do we know about most satellites?

First, there are several catalogs of satellites. These are lists of satellites and information about them, and are maintained by different organizations. What are these catalogs? I have written a couple of articles that have appeared here that give some background, such as one about overlooked satellites (see “Acknowledging some overlooked satellites”, The Space Review, June 12, 2017), while another discusses why some satellites are in some catalogs and not others (see “Time for common sense with the satellite catalog”, The Space Review, April 10, 2017).

The US Air Force maintains the default world official satellite catalog and assigns official satellite numbers and “international designators,” which state what launch each object is associated with. The Air Force gets observations from many sites, radar and optical, around the world and uses them to generate and maintain orbital parameters for satellites. That is how they know which object is from which launch. That international designator is very important when a satellite reenters: the country that owns a satellite that reenters is responsible for any damage caused when it impacts the ground. Also, for satellite collisions, the country that owns a satellite that “causes” a collision is responsible for damage.

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THE US military is close to unveiling new super-powered lasers capable of zapping nukes straight out of the sky.

The 150-kilowatt weapons will be fitted to warships and are able to ‘take out’ drones, aircraft, cruise missiles and even other ships.

“The previous laser prototype was tested in the Persian Gulf three years ago aboard an amphibious the USS Ponce,” said Col Mikhail Khodarenok, former editor of the Military-Industrial Courier.

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Raytheon and the US Navy have successfully fired a precision-guided munition that can be fired from a howitzer and zero in on a moving object. The recent test of the Excalibur S round not only demonstrated its ability to switch from GPS to laser guidance to find its target, but also that its electronics and sensors can withstand the shock of being fired out of a gun.

The Excalibur S is the latest variant of Raytheon’s Excalibur line of smart projectiles. Developed by Raytheon and BAE Systems Bofors, it uses the GPS technology from the Excalibur Ib, and combines it with a semi-active laser seeker that allows it to home in on moving land and maritime targets with a miss radius of under two meters (6.5 ft).

The Excalibur system is designed to work with a variety of artillery and can extend the range of a .52 caliber gun to over 50 km (31 mi) to hit or damage its target with the first round. When the Excalibur S is first fired, it uses GPS to make its initial target fix, then switches over to its laser sensor to home in on an outside targeting beam.

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The U.S. military test-launched an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) early Wednesday, Air Force Global Strike Command said in a news release.

The Minuteman III, which the Air Force said was fitted with a test re-entry vehicle, was launched at 12:33 a.m. Pacific Time from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

The re-entry vehicle traveled about 4,200 miles to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the release said.

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The news: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has conducted the first test of a new type of drone that can be launched from a plane in a swarm and recovered in mid-air when it’s done its job.

How it works: A military transport or bomber plane releases a series of drones in rapid succession. They carry out the task designated to them (surveillance, for example) and then return to the plane, docking on a line before being winched in. It looks a bit like the airborne refueling process.

Testing: A test, which took place in Utah in November but was first reported this week, showed that a military transport plane can successfully launch and monitor the drone, known as an X-61A Gremlin. However, after a successful mid-air launch and a flight lasting one hour, 41 minutes, the drone crashed when “mechanical issues” prevented its parachute from deploying, the firm behind the drone, Dynetics, said in a press statement. There’s video of the test here (it includes bad music, be warned). This spring, DARPA will try to fly and recover four of the drones for the first time.

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In Omar Farha’s lab at Northwestern University, the chemist and his team are working on an unusual craft project in collaboration with the United States Army. They mix powders and liquids into a paint-like consistency, dip swatches of cotton fabric into the liquid, and then leave the beige cloth out to dry. Through this process, they are creating fabrics that can rapidly neutralize some of the deadliest poisons known to humankind: nerve agents.

Chemists are collaborating with the US Army to build uniforms that can quickly break down toxic substances, protecting soldiers from chemical weapons.

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O.o.

Laser weapons can strike at the speed of light, and they’re quickly deploying to every possible fighting domain, whether on land, in the air, and at sea. But what about under the sea?

Open-source budget documents, the earliest of which date back to 2011, show the Navy’s plans to arm Virginia-class nuclear subs with high-energy laser weapons. It’s a strange idea seeing as laser weapons definitely do not work underwater. Submarines are also quiet recluses by design, rarely popping their heads above water.

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