Space Plane Tech Could Power Hypersonic Aircraft​ for US Military

This artist's illustration depicts the Skylon concept vehicle.

Credit: Adrian Mann

Engine technology being developed for a British space plane could also find its way into hypersonic aircraft built by the U.S. military.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is studying hypersonic vehicles that would use the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), which the English company Reaction Engines Ltd. is working on to power the Skylon space plane, AFRL officials said.

"AFRL is formulating plans to look at advanced vehicle concepts based on Reaction Engine's heat-exchanger technology and SABRE engine concept," officials with AFRL, which is based in Ohio, told reporters.

SABRE and Skylon were invented by Alan Bond and his team of engineers at the Abingdon, England-based Reaction Engines.

SABRE burns hydrogen and oxygen. It acts like a jet engine in Earth's thick lower atmosphere, taking in oxygen to combust with onboard liquid hydrogen.

When SABRE reaches an altitude of 16 miles (26 kilometers) and five times the speed of sound (Mach 5), however, it switches over to Skylon's onboard liquid oxygen tank to reach orbit.

Two SABREs will power the Skylon space plane, a privately funded, single-stage-to-orbit concept vehicle t-hat is 276 feet (84 meters) long. At takeoff, the plane will weigh about 303 tons (275,000 kilograms).



The SABRE heat exchanger is also known as a pre-cooler. It will cool the air entering Skylon's engines from more than 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) down to minus 238 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 150 degrees C) in one one-hundredth of a second.

The oxygen in the chilled air will become liquid in the process.

"The [pre-cooler] performance has always been pretty much what we predicted," Bond explained to reporters at the Farnborough International Airshow in England on July 16.

"We've now done over 700 actual tests. It's now done as much service as a pre-cooler would in a real engine."

Bond's team has also successfully tested the pre-cooler for a problem aviation jet engines have to deal with: foreign objects being sucked in.

"We know it [the pre-cooler] can take debris, insects, leaves," Bond said.

US Military Developing Foldable Space Telescope - Video

The United States military's advanced research arm is working on a foldable space telescope that could image Earth in high resolution at a relatively low cost.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) says the telescope design, known as the Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation, (MOIRE), would be of great use in geosynchronous Earth orbit, the spot 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers) up where most telecommunications satellites reside.

"Membrane optics could enable us to fit much larger, higher-resolution telescopes in smaller and lighter packages," Lt. Col. Larry Gunn, MOIRE program manager, said in a statement.

The Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation (MOIRE) is in Phase 2 of ground testing. 

If it ever reaches orbit. the telescope is billed as lighter than conventional designs and able to get high-definiton pictures of Earth from geosynchronous orbit.

Credit: DARPA

"In that respect, we’re ‘breaking the glass ceiling’ that traditional materials impose on optics design," Gunn added.

"We’re hoping our research could also help greatly reduce overall costs and enable more timely deployment using smaller, less expensive launch vehicles."

MOIRE is now in Phase 2 of development since work began in 2010. When this phase is completed, a 16-foot (5 meters) prototype of the telescope's mirror should be completed for ground testing.

No space missions have been set for MOIRE yet, DARPA officials said.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to the MOIRE design. The membrane is not as efficient as the usual glass, but it is lighter, which allows prime contractor Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. to make larger lenses to increase the telescope's efficiency.

DARPA estimates that a membrane system should weigh 86 percent less than a more traditional system of the same resolution and mass.

The size of the Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation (MOIRE)'s mirror compared with that of the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope.

Credit: DARPA

Most telescopes either reflect light (using mirrors) or refract it (using lenses), but MOIRE's behaves differently.

Each membrane will instead diffract light using a piece of equipment known as a Fresnel lens.

"It is etched with circular concentric grooves like microscopically thin tree rings, with the grooves hundreds of microns across at the center down to only 4 microns at the outside edge," DARPA officials said in a statement. "The diffractive pattern focuses light on a sensor that the satellite translates into an image."

3D Printing: No longer a Sc-Fi Fantasy

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2013 Wayne Losey, co-founder of Dynamo DevLabs, speaks about 3D printing during the Hardware Innovation Workshop in San Mateo, Calif.

With the printers users make whatever they like, iPad stands, guitars, jewelry, someone even made a rifle.

About the size of a microwave oven, the printers usually extrude plastic, layer upon layer, to create objects.

Sales are projected to jump from about $1.7 billion in 2011 to $3.7 billion in 2015. 

Credit: AP Photo/Eric Risberg

Invisalign, a San Jose company, uses 3-D printing to make each mouthful of customized, transparent braces.

Mackenzies Chocolates, a confectioner in Santa Cruz, uses a 3-D printer to pump out chocolate molds.

Earlier this year, Cornell University researchers used a 3-D printer, along with injections of a special collagen gel, to create a human-shaped ear.

Once a science-fiction fantasy, three-dimensional printers are popping up everywhere from the desks of home hobbyists to Air Force drone research centers.

The machines, generally the size of a microwave oven and costing $400 to more than $500,000, extrude layer upon layer of plastics or other materials, including metal, to create 3-D objects with moving parts.

Users are able to make just about anything they like: iPad stands, guitars, jewelry, even guns. But experts warn this cool innovation could soon turn controversial—because of safety concerns but also the potential for the technology to alter economies that rely on manufacturing.



"We believe that 3-D printing is fundamentally changing the manufacturing ecosystem in its entirety—how and where products are made and by whom," said Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO of New York-based Shapeways, an online company that makes and sells 3-D printed products designed by individuals.

Products include a delicate, twig-like egg cup (cost: $8.10) and a lamp that looks like a nuclear mushroom cloud (cost: $1,388.66).

Richard D'Aveni

"We're on the verge of the next industrial revolution, no doubt about it," added Dartmouth College business professor Richard D'Aveni.

"In 25 years, entire industries are going to disappear. Countries relying on mass manufacturing are going to find themselves with no revenues and no jobs."

On ground, sea or air, when parts break, new ones can be made on the spot, and even the tools to install them can be made, eliminating the need for staging parts in warehouses around the world, said Jeff DeGrange, vice president of Direct Digital Manufacturing at Stratasys Inc., currently the industry leader in a field of about 50 3-D printer companies.

Jeff DeGrange

"We're going to see innovation happening at a much higher rate, introduction of products at a much higher rate," said DeGrange.

"We live in an on-demand world now, and we'll see production schedules are going to be greatly compressed."

Airplane mechanics could print a replacement part on the runway. A dishwasher repairman could make a new gasket in his service truck. A surgeon could print a knee implant custom-designed to fit a patient's body.

But the military, D'Aveni said, is likely to be among the first major users of 3-D printers, because of the urgency of warfare.

"Imagine a soldier on a firebase in the mountains of Afghanistan. A squad is attacked by insurgents. The ammunition starts to run out. Is it worth waiting hours and risking the lives of helicopter pilots to drop it near you, or is it worth a more expensive system that can manufacture weapons and ammunition on the spot?" he said.

In the past two years, the U.S. Defense Department has spent more than $2 million on 3-D printers, supplies and upkeep, according to federal contract records.

Their uses range from medical research to weapons development. In addition, the Obama administration has launched a $30 million pilot program that includes researching how to use 3-D printing to build weapons parts.

NASA is also wading into this arena, spending $500,000 in the past two years on 3-D printing. Its Lunar Science Institute (LSI) has published descriptions of how it is exploring the possibility of using the printers to build everything from spacecraft parts while in orbit to a lunar base.

You can read more about the NASA and the LSI 3D Printing research here

US Military's Secretive Robot Space Plane: X-37B Mission Passes 5-Month Mark

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center image shows on-orbit functions for the reusable X-37 space plane, now under the wing of the U.S. Air Force. 

CREDIT: NASA/MSFC

The U.S. Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane has quietly passed the five-month mark on its latest secret mission in Earth orbit.

The unmanned X-37B spacecraft launched into space atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Dec. 11, 2012, kicking off a mission whose objectives and payloads are classified.

The winged craft is known as Orbital Test Vehicle-3 (OTV-3), since it is conducting the third mission of the Air Force's X-37B program.

What OTV-3 is up to on its confidential cruise remains unknown.

However, a network of vigilant skywatchers is monitoring the mission as it progresses.

"It’s certainly important not to forget about these programs," said Ted Molczan of Toronto, a leader in the worldwide community of satellite trackers.

"Careful observation over a long time may provide the clues to finally solve the mystery."

Molczan said that, even then, he suspects that any breakthrough in knowledge regarding X-37B’s orbital missions will more likely result from leaks by insiders to journalists.

"Hobbyist observations can provide corroboration and some interesting, even useful details, but seldom are sufficient to expose the big picture…especially with new programs," he reported. "With X-37B, we can only watch and wait."

US Spy Satellite for Military and Intelligence Commanders

The US nation’s spies and its military commanders are at odds over the future of America’s spy satellites, a divide that could determine whether the United States government will increasingly rely on its own eyes in the sky or on less costly commercial technology.

The fight is shaping up into the intelligence world’s version of the United States Postal Service versus FedEx — a traditional government institution that must provide comprehensive services versus a more nimble private sector that is cherry-picking the most lucrative business opportunities.

In recent years, advances in commercially available technology have allowed private companies to develop satellites carrying high-resolution sensors and perform many of the surveillance tasks that were once the sole preserve of classified satellites owned and operated by the intelligence community.

Two private companies already provide some of America’s spy satellite imagery, at far lower costs than government-owned satellites, according to current and former government and industry officials and outside analysts.

But at the urging of senior intelligence officials, the Obama administration has proposed cutting the contracts for commercial satellite imagery in half next year — to about $250 million from $540 million — to help meet deficit reduction requirements, while bringing back more of the work inside the government, according to administration and Congressional officials and industry experts.

Both Republican and Democratic leaders on the Congressional intelligence committees are resisting the budget cuts and siding with the private companies and the military, which argues that it could not get as much imagery as it needs for combat operations without turning to the less expensive commercial technology.

“The debate is really between the military, which needs a lot of imagery but doesn’t need the highly classified imagery, and the intelligence community, which wants to keep the capability to produce its own imagery,” said Bill Wilt, a senior official with GeoEye, one of the private satellite companies.

In the midst of what observers in and out of government describe as an increasingly bitter turf war, the director of the National Reconnaissance Office, the secret agency that manages the nation’s spy satellites, resigned Wednesday.

Bruce Carlson, the director, issued a statement saying that he is leaving the reconnaissance office, which is part of the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, a spokeswoman for the office said.

Administration officials said his resignation was not related to the satellite fight. But Mr. Carlson was said to be an advocate for cutting the budget for the commercial satellite companies, and his departure occurred as the satellite industry and its supporters on the Congressional intelligence committees were gearing up to oppose the budget cuts.

Spy satellites are among the most expensive tools used by the intelligence community, dwarfing most other elements of the classified intelligence budget.

When the commercial satellite industry developed in the 1990s, it could not compete with the highly sophisticated sensing equipment flown by the government’s spy satellites. But gradually, the gap between commercial satellites and the intelligence community’s has narrowed.

American commercial satellite companies now produce images of higher resolution than they are permitted to sell publicly, and their only customers are United States government agencies or foreign governments, with American approval.

Commercial satellites can show, for example, an image of a specific vehicle type or spare tire on a truck, while the more sensitive government-owned satellites can detect gun mounts or vehicle identification numbers.

The intelligence community uses even higher resolution imagery for tasks like monitoring the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, but the commercial satellites are adequate for almost all of the needs of the military.

Military commanders, who need access to large volumes of satellite imagery for mapping and other daily uses in combat zones, have become big advocates of the expanded use of commercial satellite imagery.

Read more of this article in the NY Times

DARPA: U.S. military to help launch intersteller space travel

Forget about Europe and Russia working together to send people to Mars, one U.S. government agency wants to get the ball rolling on interstellar space travel.

Darpa, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is looking to award a $500,000 grant to an ambitious organisation to figure out just what it would take to transport humans to stars orbiting beyond our galaxy, according to a recent report.

The grant, scheduled to be released on November 11th, is the result of the 100-Year Starship Study, the agency’s year-long collaboration with NASA wherein collaborators explored various approaches to developing a “viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines” required to “make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible,” according to the website.

A three-day public symposium will be held on Sept. 30 in Orlando, Florida, to discuss ways to persuade more people and institutions to start asking “Why not?", "Dare we?" and "How can we?”

If the idea sounds far out, in a technical sense, it is. Voyager 1, the fastest spacecraft mankind has ever built, has a gravity-assisted top speed of 38,000 miles and, even at that rate, would take more than 70,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri, the closest neighbouring star system.

Clearly, a number of prominent scientists would like to be known that ideas to cut travel time to such a destination from thousands of years to a much more manageable 50 years is very much plausible. Some of these include:

• Propelling a ship using the pressure waves created by a series of atomic bomb explosions located on the back end. Originally conceived in the late 1950s by a group of prominent scientists that incuded Freeman Dyson, the method would speed up the journey, though it would still take hundreds of years to reach Alpha Centauri.

• Using tiny thermonuclear explosions to generate thrust, a more modest method that requires the use of laser blasts to compress pellets of deuterium and helium-3 - The brains behind this proposal are a group called the British Interplanetary Society (BIS), which presented the plan in the 1970s as part of their own interstellar spaceship study, Project Daedalus. They conjecture that it would create enough propulsion for a 500-ton scientific probe to reach Barnard’s Star, 5.9 light-years away, in about 50 years time. Along the way, the spacecraft would hit speeds as fast as 12 percent of the speed of light.

There is, as always a big but in the way! Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s keep in mind that for now the plausibility of journeying to other galaxies is still the stuff of science fiction.

Warp speed technologies that can easily help travelers get around time based human aging and other astro physics problems, are not yet available.

A real-life spaceship capable of interstellar space travel may take centuries to build and can easily cost trillions of dollars to develop. The trip would also most likely be a one-way ticket.

David Neyland, Darpa’s director of tactical technology, also won’t hesitate to point out that the grant is merely intended to serve as financial assistance for the development of a business plan, not a spaceship, that may enable mankind to travel to the stars.

“We don’t intend to carry it forward,” Mr. Neyland said. “Darpa hands the keys over to this entity, and we wish them well.”

US military loses contact with HTV, hypersonic aircraft

US military scientists on Thursday launched a hypersonic aircraft but lost contact with the experimental plane in its second test flight, officials said.

The unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2), designed as a global bomber prototype capable of a mind-boggling 20 times the speed of sound, launched successfully from California aboard a Minotaur IV rocket, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

But after the plane separated from the rocket in the upper reaches of the atmosphere for its "glide" phase, contact was lost, DARPA said.

"Range assets have lost telemetry with HTV2," DARPA wrote in a Twitter post after the launch.

The agency provided no other details about the flight or how long it had been separated from the rocket.

Last year, scientists lost contact with the HTV-2 after nine minutes in its inaugural flight.

The hypersonic plane, which is supposed to travel at Mach 20, or 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometers) per hour, could potentially provide the US military with a platform for striking targets anywhere on the planet within minutes using conventional weapons.

Such a weapon, still in development, is part of what the US Air Force has dubbed "prompt global strike" capability.

"The ultimate goal is a capability that can reach anywhere in the world in less than an hour," DARPA said on its website.

In theory, the Falcon could travel between New York City and Los Angeles in less than 12 minutes.

Unlike a ballistic missile, a hypersonic vehicle could maneuver and avoid flying along a predictable path. Moreover, analysts say it would not be mistaken for a nuclear missile, avoiding the possibility of triggering a nuclear confrontation.

But Loren Thompson, an analyst at Lexington Institute with links to the defense industry, said there was still much work to be done before the hypersonic bomber becomes a reality.

"The military has a long way to go before hypersonic vehicles are ready for deployment," Thompson told AFP.

After separating from the rocket Thursday, the Falcon undertook some maneuvers before contact was lost, DARPA said.

The test flight plan called for the Falcon to eventually roll and dive into the Pacific Ocean.

US Airborne Laser Shoots down a Ballistic Missile

A high-energy laser mounted on a US military aircraft has shot down a ballistic missile in the first successful test of the weapon, the US Missile Defense Agency said on Friday.

The experiment -- evoking a scene out of a science fiction film -- was carried out off the central California coast at Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center at 8:44 pm Thursday Pacific time (0444 GMT), the agency said in a statement.

"The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic missile," it said.

The laser, mounted on a turret on the nose of a modified 747 aircraft, is designed to knock out an enemy missile by burning a hole in its side.

The project has been touted as potentially revolutionary, as the lasers are supposed to destroy ballistic missiles just after launch, when the missiles are moving at a slower speed on a predictable path.

The test could provide a boost to the five billion dollar program that has faced technical problems and been scaled back from initial plans that called for building a fleet of seven laser-equipped aircraft.

Last year Defense Secretary Robert Gates cancelled funds for a second prototype aircraft and called for more research to refine the weapon. He said the proposed role for the laser remained "highly questionable" amid questions about its cost and effectiveness.