Russia to deploy drones to Artic

Tass reports that the Russian Military will be deploying Orlan-10 drones to the Arctic for navigation security and conduct coastal air reconnaissance over Russian territorial waters.
The drone has thought to have a data range of 120km and an autonomous range of 1,000km and has a flight time of 16.5 hours and can fly at an altitude of 5 km.


Sources    Jamestown Foundation     Tass

Laser Guided Bullet

EXACTO (Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance) the bullet that can change trajectory and home in on its target. No not SIFI  DARPA is testing a laser guided.50 calibre bullet that can correct it self to hit the target from further afield accounting for wind and other factors. In phase 3 scientists will continue to improve the bullet and improve its accuracy

Source   DARPA

Taranis Stealth Drone

Taranis - The future of aviation technology 

Taranis named after the Celtic god of thunder is a joint venture between The UK MOD and 

 BAE Systems   costing £185 million 

 BAE System

About the size of a BAE Systems Hawk aircraft - Taranis has been designed and built by BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, the Systems division of GE Aviation (formerly Smiths Aerospace) and QinetiQ working alongside UK MOD military staff and scientists. In addition to prime contracting the project, BAE Systems led on many elements of the Taranis technology demonstrator, including the low observability, systems integration, control infrastructure and full autonomy elements (in partnership with QinetiQ).

Honeywell T-Hawk UAV

 

 I thought this worth a mention purely because it looks like something from Star Wars. The Honeywell T-Hawk is a Gasoline powered UAV in the MAV Family (micro aerial vehicle) and is .reported to weigh about 20lbs. With a ceiling of 3200 meters a radius of 11km and a speed of 130kmh this is a very useful  Reconnaissance tool.

References     Wikipedia     Honeywell

Lunar Elevator

The Liftport group  have announced it is throwing all of its weight behind the Lunar elevator known as Elsie to be completed by  December 31st, 2019.
The  elevator will be built from a point in space known as the Lagrange Point (the point equidistant from the Moon and the Earth’s gravitational field) and will be known as the PicoGravity Laboratory.
From this  point the anchor will be dropped down to the Anchor Station at Sinus Medii( the cross hairs at the centre of a full moon.
The lift could be used to ferry supplies and  minerals to and from the surface,


REF Liftport

Orion Test Flight Relaunch

The Orion  flight test has been put back to 07:05 EST after yesterdays postponement where there is a  2 hour 39 min window for launch.

More at  Press the Tech      NASA

NASA's new space ship launch

 

NASA's new manned  goes for its test drive today, the ship named Orion is a lot like the Apollo ships but is much larger and it is planned to use this for a manned mars mission. The capsule will eventual use its own new type of rocket that is not yet ready so for this launch it will use the Delta IV-Heavy rocket.  

This is a unmanned test flight and will reenter at the same sort of speed as the moon mission craft.

More on this story    BBC       Scientific American

Driver less car trials in Four towns

                                            


Four areas in the UK have been selected to test driver less cars. The areas Greenwich, in south-east London, and Bristol will have their own project whilst Coventry and Milton Keynes will co host one. The project has a 19 Million pound budget from the UK Government

Source    BBC

Laser Link Services via Satellite

          ESA (European Space Agency's) has successfully downloaded an image from a satellite to Earth using a laser beam.  The image was transmitted as a test  using a new 450 million Euro project to create a data highway. The project called European Data Relay Satellite (EDRS) will allow faster more secure ways to transmit data from space to earth. The data will travel at 1.8Ghz per second and be able to route between satellites to avoid any black spots as with the present 4 radio receiving stations.

Source ESA

Video Here