AEDC reaches major milestone with hypersonic engine testing

A 10-year effort to upgrade a high speed, high temperature, blow-down ground test facility at Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) culminated in a recent hypersonic Mach 6 test run on a state-of-the-art combined-cycle engine demonstrator.

"This test was significant," said Matthew Bond, test manager of AEDC's Aerodynamic and Propulsion Test Unit (APTU). "The Mach 6 run on June 24 was the first-ever scramjet propulsion test at AEDC.

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'Brain Carpet' Translates Thoughts Into Action

Instead of violently shoving a giant needle into the brain a la "The Matrix," Utah scientists are reading thoughts by carpeting the brain with microelectrodes.

This "modest advance," as the scientists describe it, could enable more precise control of prosthetic limbs or advance research in epilepsy and other diseases of the brain.

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Raytheon Ground Soldier Ensemble Achieves Initial Program Milestones

Raytheon Company's (NYSE: RTN) Ground Soldier Ensemble team completed two major program milestones and is moving to demonstrate networked tactical situational awareness and digital communications capabilities for the dismounted warfighter.

Raytheon's GSE team delivered to the U.S. Army the first open frame hardware on schedule in June, and earlier that month, held its first preliminary design review.

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Aluminum Blasted With X-Ray Laser Reveals New Transparent State of Matter

German researchers at the FLASH facility in Hamburg decided to roast a piece of aluminum foil with a 10-million-gigawatt X-ray laser. They heated the foil so hot that it became a new matter state: transparent aluminum. It's also believed to be the same state of matter that comprises the core of planets, such as Jupiter.

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DARPA Readies an Ultra-Fast Mini-Sub

The DARPA program, first announced in 2006, has finally reached the testing phase. Electric Boat, the company contracted to design the Underwater Express, is producing a quarter-scale model of the speedy sub, to be tested next year off the coast of Rhode Island.

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Blazepoint launches new Tactical Tablet PC

launched a new Tactical Tablet PC for military and commercial applications.
The new range of the ndura RUGGED® Tactical Tablet PC’s incorporate the Intel® Atom™ processor.

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A Quest for Batteries to Alter the Energy Equation

In a gleaming white factory here, Bob Peters was gently feeding sheets of chemical-coated foil one afternoon recently into a whirring machine that cut them into precise rectangles. It was an early step in building a new kind of battery, one smaller than a cereal box but with almost as much energy as the kind in a conventional automobile.

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Arrow 2 test failure a 'serious setback

The failure of an upgraded Arrow 2 missile interceptor in a test off the Californian coast was seen as a serious setback for Israel's main defense system at a time when Iran is accelerating its long-range ballistic missile program.

The Arrow test scheduled for July 22 was aborted on three occasions because of technical malfunctions, including communications glitches between the missile and its Israel-developed Green Pine radar, according to Israel and U.S. accounts.

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