Dynamic Weather Routes (DWR) tool tested at an American Airlines control center

The Dynamic Weather Routes (DWR) tool being tested at an American Airlines control center saves time with better options for avoiding bad weather.

Image Credit: NASA

In the heat of a summer afternoon, a line of thunderstorms develops in the skies over North Texas and threatens to wreak havoc with the timely flow of air traffic headed toward or away from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

One look at the weather radar tells the grim story: airlines will lose money as jets burn extra fuel to avoid the storms and aggravated passengers will miss connections as flights are delayed. No one will be happy.

Fortunately, a NASA-developed tool designed to alleviate some of those weather-induced interruptions and resulting frustrations is testing well in ongoing field trials that involve American Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Known as Dynamic Weather Routes (DWR), the computer software tool is programmed to constantly analyze air traffic throughout the National Airspace System, along with the ever-shifting movements of weather severe enough to require an airliner to make a course change.

Wearable 4MM jetpack tested on speed, agility for runners - Video

"Everybody has always wanted to fly. When people hear the word 'jetpack,' that's what they really think about," said Jason Kerestes at Arizona State University.

He is one of the busy explorers at ASU trying to bridge gaps between man and machine. Kerestes has done something different with the jetpack concept.

He and team have reduced the amount of force; their device does not enable a person to fly, "but we have instantaneous thrust and we can pretty much trigger it to allow for faster movement and agile motion."

His jetpack, simply put, does not help you to fly but to run faster, and for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), his project's progress means a lot.

Kerestes has built his prototype, which is now undergoing tests and refinements.

The project is called 4MM, for 4-minute mile. The overall goal is to get any soldier or any test subject to be able to run a 4-minute mile who was not already capable of doing so.

Kerestes started doing his research "kind of by accident," he said.

As the owner of a welding business and going to ASU, students came to him; the team at the time was just at the infancy of this project.

"We were developing robots that could assist amputees," said Professor Thomas Sugar of the Human Machine Integration Lab.

"And DARPA came back to us and asked if we could develop robots that could assist able-bodied people, and make them able to run faster or do things they couldn't do."

Dr. Sugar works on mobile robot navigation and wearable robotics for the rehabilitation of stroke survivors.

Kerestes, already interested in the robotic process, welcomed the opportunity to get involved.

He said the fact that he could work at designing something and then weld up a prototype the next day substantially reduced their overall time on moving from concept to prototype.

Dr. Sugar said he and Kerestes had their doubts they could come up with something but then decided it was possible. They have seen encouraging results so far.

In trials over a 200-meter distance, with the jetpack, they saw a decrease in time and decrease in metabolic cost, the amount of energy required for a person to run at high speeds.

In a test, a subject with the jetpack on a sprint ran three seconds faster, and that was with carrying an extra 11.2 pounds of weight, the jetpack.

As for military support, Kerestes noted that in a warfare arena, a device such as this could spell the difference between life and death, "if you think of a Navy SEAL or a soldier that must get in somewhere quickly, and get out just as quickly," said Kerestes.

NASA ORION: Carbon fibre barrier tested - Video

NASA is vacuum testing the carbon fiber barrier between the Orion capsule and the propellent stage. Its main purpose is to keep dangerous gasses away from the spacecraft.

Credit: NASA / MSFC

ESA Galileo: Galileo's secure service tested by Member States

Galileo IOV in orbit. Credit: ESA - P. Carril

EU Member States have begun their independent testing of the most accurate and secure signal broadcast by the four Galileo navigation satellites in orbit.

Transmitted on two frequency bands with enhanced protection, the Public Regulated Service (PRS) offers a highly accurate positioning and timing service, with access strictly restricted to authorised users.

"Galileo is in its In-Orbit Validation phase, planned to include experimental demonstrations of PRS capabilities in terms of positioning and access control," explained Miguel Manteiga Bautista, heading ESA's Galileo Security Office.

PRS access was initially considered for Galileo's Full Operational Capability phase, but it has been enabled in 2013 in response to the strong interest of Member States in this service.

To allow early access to PRS during the current phase, the European Commission and ESA began the joint project 'PRS Participants To IOV' (PPTI) in July 2012.

ESA ensured the availability of several tools developed under ESA contracts, including test receivers and other qualification equipment.

ESA also provided the critical knowhow and expertise required to conduct these experimental campaigns.

ESA's PRS Laboratory, based at the Agency's ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, was used to provide training, demonstrations and sample data.

"As a result, Belgium, France, Italy and the UK have now performed independent PRS acquisition and positioning tests.

In parallel, ESA, through collaboration with Dutch and Italian authorities, is also conducting PRS fixed and mobile validation in several locations in the Netherlands and Italy," added Miguel Manteiga.

The PRS tests have demonstrated a current autonomous positioning accuracy below 10 m when in the correct geometrical configuration.

This is an impressive result considering the small number of Galileo satellites in orbit and the limited ground infrastructure so far deployed.

In the case of Italy, which has developed its own PRS receiver, the tests have already confirmed the feasibility of independent PRS receiver development and verification based on specifications provided by ESA.

"But the PPTI project is still ongoing in order to test more advanced functionalities this coming autumn and to run the first aeronautical PRS tests in collaboration with the Dutch authorities. Other Member States have also expressed their willingness to join the IOV PRS experimentation campaigns soon," concluded Miguel Manteiga.

The project is the first step to ensure the use of the PRS service as soon as it is operational. It will be complemented by the PRS Pilot Projects, focused on PRS applications, which are currently under definition in a common effort between the EU Member States, the European Commission, ESA and the European Global Navigation Satellite System Agency.

In addition to the qualification of the PRS service, these initiatives will allow the timely availability of competitive PRS receivers in Europe and the setting up of organisations in the Member States required to handle PRS.

ESA EADS Alphasat experiences Deep Space on Earth: Interspace

Tucked away in a vacuum chamber for several months, Europe's largest telecom satellite has faced the harsh conditions it will deal with once it is launched into space this summer.

Testing at Intespace in Toulouse, France, simulated conditions close to those Alphasat will experience in flight, including the intense cold of its transfer orbits in the early stages of the mission.

Not only was Alphasat's ability to control its temperature tested, but other features were also put through their paces to ensure everything can run under the extreme cold and hot conditions.

"If you were going to test a new car for extreme conditions, you would probably want to do the same thing: not only check the heating and air conditioning, but also make sure that the engine, brakes, ignition and radio work in low temperatures as well as high," explained Philippe Sivac, ESA's Alphasat acting project manager.

To monitor the satellite inside the large chamber, nearly 600 temperature sensors were attached in key locations. A satellite the size of Alphasat can also carry up to 400 flight thermal sensors.

Readouts are displayed in real time, together with the satellite's internal data to help build an overall picture for the team monitoring Alphasat around the clock.

Running Alphasat under very stable thermal situations showed that the thermal-mathematical model is well suited to predict the temperatures in orbit.

"Finally, the performance and functional tests show that all the electronics and software perform as expected even at extreme temperatures."

Drug that could reverse Alzheimer’s to be tested on patients

A new drug with the potential to halt or even reverse Alzheimer’s disease is expected to be tested in patients later this year, researchers have revealed.

The drug, which tackles a key factor in the development of the disease, is expected to enter the crucial Phase 3 trial – the last stage before seeking regulatory approval – in the latter half of 2010, according to its inventor, Aberdeen University’s Professor Claude Wischik.

Earlier clinical trials of the drug – called remberTM – showed that it could slow progression of Alzheimer’s disease by 84 per cent over 12 months. Furthermore, the effect was sustained over two years. When the results were reported at a conference in Chicago in 2008, they caused worldwide excitement and optimism that, at last, an effective treatment for dementia could be in the pipeline.

But before the drug could move to Phase 3 trials – which will compare it against placebo in larger numbers of patients – millions of dollars in funding have to be raised and regulatory obstacles overcome.

Prof Wischik is optimistic that that ongoing fundraising will permit the Phase 3 trial to begin this year. “This will be a large-scale, international study using around 50 centres,” he said. “We’re moving on substantially from the Phase 2 trial – we’ve beefed up our management team and have really moved on to another level.

“We’re breaking new ground here – the Phase 2 trial provided the first evidence that a drug of this type could arrest progression of the disease, but we believe it can go further than that and perhaps reverse the disease, at least at its early stages.”

The drug acts on the “tangles” which are found in the brains of people with the disease, and which were first described by Alois Alzheimer in 1907. Around two decades ago, Prof Wischik discovered that these tangles were made up of a build up of tau protein, which destroys the brain cells responsible for memory, before going on to kill neurons elsewhere in the brain.

A university spin-out company, TauRx Therapeutics, based in Singapore, developed a novel treatment from a chemical already used in other conditions, which appears to ‘dissolve’ the tangles and halt cognitive decline – the Holy Grail in dementia treatment.

The Phase 2 trial – intended to reveal side-effects as well as efficacy – revealed that the tested form of the chemical worked well at the low and moderate doses, backing the theory that it could arrest the progression of the disease.

It did not work at the highest dose tested due to a problem with the formulation which affected the release of the drug in its active form and this had an impact both on the efficacy and side-effects and limiting the benefit that can be achieved with the older form of the chemical.

Read the full article here at Caledonian Mercury .....