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Category: military – Page 114

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has announced the successful free flight test of an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile demonstrator developed by Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. This comes more than a year after the announcement of successful captive-carry tests of this weapon, as well as a competing design from Lockheed Martin, as part of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept program, or HAWC.

The announcement of this test of the Raytheon/Northrop Grumman missile came earlier today in a press release, but the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), working together with the U.S. Air Force, conducted it last week. The U.S. Navy was also involved in the test. DARPA’s official statement does not provide any update on any similar progress on the Lockheed Martin design.

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Sept 24 (Reuters) — Intel Corp (INTC.O) on Friday broke ground on two new factories in Arizona as part of its turnaround plan to become a major manufacturer of chips for outside customers.

The $20 billion plants — dubbed Fab 52 and Fab 62 — will bring the total number of Intel factories at its campus in Chandler, Arizona, to six. They will house Intel’s most advanced chipmaking technology and play a central role in the Santa Clara, California-based company’s effort to regain its lead in making the smallest, fastest chips by 2,025 after having fallen behind rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (2330.TW).

The new Arizona plants will also be the first Intel has built from the ground up with space reserved for outside customers. Intel has long made its own chips, but its turnaround plan calls for taking on work for outsiders such as Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O) Amazon.com’s (AMZN.O) cloud unit, as well as deepening its manufacturing relationship with the U.S. military.

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Boeing displayed a Long-Range Air-to-Air Missile (LRAAM) concept at the annual Air, Space, and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, this week.

The two-stage missile reportedly has a “kill vehicle” attached atop a rear booster section. The end of the missile is ejected after the initial burst, igniting the front section and propelling it to the target.

According to War Zone, Boeing began development of the concept in response to the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Broad Area Announcement (BAA) last year requesting novel solutions for faster, longer-range air-to-air missile development.

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The US Space Force announced the transfer of satellite communications billets, funding, and mission responsibility from the Army and Navy.

The United States Space Force, through its chief of operations, announced that the satellite communications billets, funding, and mission responsibility of the US Army and Navy will be transferred to the Space Force.

Space Force Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond made the announcement on Tuesday at the Air Force Association meeting in Washington. The transfer is not yet complete and still needs approval from the Department of Defense.

If it is approved, the transfer is expected to take effect on October 1 2021. A total of 15 global units, with 319 military, and 259 civilian billets from the Army and Navy, will be transferred to the Space Force.

Continue reading “US Space Force to Take Over Military Satellite Communications” | >

The US Air Force recently tested a robotic system prototype for aircraft weapon loading at the Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.

The Square One Systems Design, MHU-TSX, uses non-hydraulic actuation making its movements precise, a key advantage over the current weapon hauling systems, the Jackson-based company revealed.

Bob Viola, Square One Systems Design director of engineering, stated that adding a sensor package to the system would make it more autonomous, leaving the personnel only to “supervise what it’s doing, which should make the loading process quicker.”

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As artificial intelligence grows in intelligence, militaries are incorporating the tech into their arsenal. From Minority Report style predictive AI to anti-aging research, AI is steadily being introduced to everything. In one bizarre example, the Israeli military has created an AI Sniper Rifle.

Reported by The New York Times, Israeli operatives carried out an assassination mission with an AI Sniper Rifle. Conducted in November 2,020 the Israeli military used a “souped-up, remote-controlled” rifle to kill Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The military had been chasing the target “for at least 14 years”.

The Israeli military has reportedly used an AI Sniper Rifle to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh after 14 years of trying.

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WASHINGTON — The ground stations and tracking antennas the U.S. military relies on to communicate with its satellites — known as the Satellite Control Network, or SCN — are decades old and short of the capacity needed to keep up with the projected growth in space activities.

There are seven SCN sites located in the United States and around the world. About 15 large dish antennas at these sites command more than 190 military and government satellites in multiple orbits.

“Certainly the Satellite Control Network is a venerable system that’s been around for a long time. So we have multiple efforts ongoing to ensure that it’s ready for the future that we now find ourselves in,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of the U.S. Space Operations Command, said last month at the 36th Space Symposium.

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A ship in the Pacific Ocean carrying a high-power laser takes aim at a U.S. spy satellite, blinding its sensors and denying the United States critical eyes in the sky.

This is one scenario that military officials and civilian leaders fear could lead to escalation and wider conflict as rival nations like China and Russia step up development and deployments of anti-satellite weapons.

If a satellite came under attack, depending on the circumstances, “the appropriate measures can be taken,” said Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command.

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Civilian Space Development has kicked-off: the work begins now!

Newsletter 17.09.2021 by Bernard Foing & Adriano V. Autino

During the last months we have seen the first civilian passengers fly to space, onboard Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic vehicles. September 15th, four civilian astronauts, onboard a Space X Dragon capsule, passed the 500 km orbit, more than 100 km higher than the ISS.In 2016 we started to publicly talk about and promote Civilian Space Development, while the whole space community kept on talking only about space exploration. Earlier, in 2,008 we founded the Space Renaissance movement, and a couple of years later the Space Renaissance International, as a philosophical association targeted to complete the Kopernican Revolution, supporting the Civilization expansion into space. Nowadays the concept of civilian space flight is everywhere on the media, and many people in the space community talk about a space renaissance. Of course the Coronavirus pandemics accelerated the awareness of the urgency to expand humanity into outer space. And space tourism — the first stage of civilian space settlement — is now a reality, in its first steps.

Of course nobody could be more happy than ourselves, for the above development, and of course**2 we want to congratulate with Elon, Richard and Jeff, for such a great achievement!

So, may we consider that our mission has been completed? Let’s see.

Firstly, were those crews composed by regular travelers, like normal air-flight passengers? Not exactly. The Inspiration4 crew members received astronaut training, for many months, including lessons in orbital mechanics, operating in a microgravity, stress testing, emergency preparedness training, and mission simulations. They have studied over 90 different kinds of training guides and manuals and lessons to learn to fly Crew Dragon, and what to do under emergency situations. The legal aspects are not clear: did FAA quickly authorize Space X and Blue Origin to deal commercial space flights? Doubt is more than legitimate, considering the long procedure followed by Virgin Galactic to be authorized to transport paying passengers in space. Likely, these first “civilian” passengers — like the first orbital tourist Dennis Tito did in 2001 — accepted conditions similar to the military astronauts (i.e. zero rights and warrants).

Continue reading “Civilian Space Development has kicked-off: the work starts now!” | >