Electronic Warfare, EA-18G Growler Could Get a Funding Boost

Electronic warfare is a key but often overlooked component in modern warfare. Electronic warfare includes protecting friendly aircraft by finding and disrupting antiaircraft radar; jamming enemy communications to support ground forces; and creating communication links between commanders, other aircraft and troops on the ground.

The Growler is a lightly armed variant of the F-18 fighter jet, configured to hold extra fuel but few weapons.

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SpaceX Successfully Delivers First Payload to Space

The first successful commercial space mission deposits a Malaysian satellite in orbit

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Cymer and ASML ship first EUV source that could extend Moore's law ten more years

Lithography systems manufacturer ASML (Veldhoven, The Netherlands) and lithography light-source manufacturer Cymer (San Diego, CA) announced the shipment of the world's first fully integrated laser-produced plasma (LPP) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography source to ASML. The companies say that EUV will support Moore's Law--the trend toward more powerful, energy-efficient yet affordable chips--for at least another ten years.

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Solid-State Laser Ready For On-Board Tests

A U.S. Navy plan to test a high-power laser against the small-boat threat to its warships provides the first real opportunity to transition electric lasers from the laboratory to the field, says Northrop Grumman, which has won a $98-million contract for the Maritime Laser Demonstration (MLD).

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The Air Force's new poster boys: drone jocks

If the Air Force needed a poster boy for the way it is adapting to the 21st century, it has high hopes that a young officer named Captain Bob will fit the bill.

Bob, who asked that his full name not be used because of the sensitivity of his job, has for now turned in his G-suit to be a desk jockey with a joystick. His days are spent, not pulling Gs, but inside an air-conditioned trailer an hour from the Las Vegas strip.

From here, he flies a remote-controlled airplane over Afghanistan or Iraq to produce video feeds of those wars a world away. The images are fed immediately to troops on the ground to track the enemy, spot someone planting a roadside bomb, or monitor other insurgent activity.

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Mars Experiment Crew 'Returns to Earth'

Six volunteers in matching blue flight suits emerged from behind a steel hatch this afternoon at Moscow's Institute for Biomedical Problems, smiling from ear-to-ear after spending the past 105 days in an "isolation experiment" to try to replicate the conditions a spaceship crew would face on a manned trip to Mars.

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