[ad_1] Defense News points out an earlier report that one of the weapons was destroyed during a captive carry test, but DARPA said those results were classified. According to today’s announcement, both variants have successfully completed captive carry tests. Next up is testing that focuses on “ hydrocarbon scramjet-powered propulsion and thermal management techniques to […]
Category: lockheed martin
Blue Origin team delivers full-scale lunar lander mockup to NASA
[ad_1] Blue Origin and its “National Team” partners Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper have delivered their full scale lunar lander mock-up to NASA. The space agency will use the engineering prototype to simulate how it could get “crew, equipment, supplies and samples off and on the vehicle” in future moon missions, according to the […]
Heron Systems’ AI pilot just beat a human in a simulated dogfight
[ad_1] Defense One reports that like many other artificial intelligence systems we’ve seen, progress in developing these pilots relied on deep reinforcement learning that trained by attempting their tasks over and over again in a virtual environment. Notably, the AI pilots weren’t allowed to use information gleaned from these battles to upgrade during the competition, […]
US Space Force will send its first satellite into space today
[ad_1] The launch is an important milestone for Space Force — the sixth branch of the military formed as a Trump administration directive. Until now, the agency has mostly just laid out plans, asked for funding, released a Star Trek-esque logo and inspired a Netflix comedy series starring Steve Carell. The AEHF-6 satellite will provide […]
NASA’s X-59 supersonic jet is cleared for final assembly
[ad_1] This is NASA’s first large-scale, piloted x-plane (or experimental aircraft) in more than three decades, and its goal is to reduce the loudness of a sonic boom to more of a sonic thump. When the long, slender jet transitions to supersonic speed, it will make about as much noise a car door closing, and […]
NASA’s Orion crew capsule is ready for its uncrewed trip to the Moon
[ad_1] The first crewed mission is Artemis 2, currently slated for 2022. The capsule is a relatively complex beast. It has enough survival equipment for 21 days of active crew time, a modern cockpit, automatic docking and a whopping 12 engines. It needs that volume of equipment, though. It’s meant to be the main crew […]