The SWORDS System

Check out the SWORDS weapon system. Pretty amazing stuff!




Godspeed

"Stay On Target"

The NAVY missile frigate U.S.S. Lake Erie launched an SM-3 missile at a failed satellite on Wednesday night. On its first attempt the satellite was destroyed. The destruction of the satellite likely ruptured the fuel tank as was required, therefore, dispersing the toxic fuel in orbit rather than on the ground where it would harm people. This was a very successful firing and great to watch. Check out the video below for some footage of the firing.

A Party Bag of Topics

Just a bunch of small topics to discuss today.


Tonight there is a total lunar eclipse, be sure to get outside and take a look at it. Happens at 10 pm EST and will be the last lunar eclipse visible in the US until 2010. Go outside and take a look, the moon will turn a cool shade of red due to the red wavelength of light that gets bent in the upper atmosphere of the Earth and projected onto the surface of the moon.

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Space shuttle Atlantis has returned safely to Cape Canaveral today ending its mission to bring a new piece of the ISS into orbit. The shuttle crew completed many tasks and made a successful mission after nearly 2 months of delays due to a faulty fuel sensor. Good to see Atlantis making another successful flight.


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One of the bigger stories of the day was the NAVY preparing to shoot down a failed satellite in orbit. This has been a huge story for the last few days as the NAVY has had to invest millions ($60 million to be exact) in modifications and man hours to prep and launch this missile. The missile will intercept the satellite and break it into many pieces which will easily burn up on re-entry. The whole reason for the shoot down of the satellite was so that the volatile hydrazine fuel won't spread over land if the fuel was to by chance survive re-entry.


Fun day for aerospace in the news!

NAVY Tests SciFi Weapon

The NAVY is now testing their new weapon that has been in development; the railgun. A weapon of science fiction is becoming a reality as the NAVY moves closer to deploying this weapon in 2020. The railgun has a capacity to launch at 32 megajoules of energy. This is a weapon that does not use explosives but rather kinetic energy in order to destroy the target.



The picture above shows the projectile impacting the target, pretty ridiculous if you realize that there is no explosive in the projectile. Quite the damage caused, but such can be expected from something traveling at Mach 5 (3700 mph)