Over the last 20 years, anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) zones have entered the global military strategy conversation in a big way. Although A2/AD methods have been around since antiquity, recent technology advances have catapulted them to center stage. Non-Western players like Russia and China are growing their resources to use A2/AD to their advantage, according to Defense One. The Chinese investment in ballistic missiles, submarines and air defense implies that they are focusing on preventing access to their shores. At the same time, Russia is growing their capabilities to advance their agenda and test the waters in Eastern Europe. The abundance of A2/AD technology strengthens their ability to control who can enter certain areas via normal transportation methods. Using their advanced air systems, Russia can hold a region hostage by controlling or monitoring an area's railroads, airports and ports, according to Defense One. While these A2/AD arsenals are expanding, the U.S. military has a dire need to meet the challenges this new world poses. The Air Force Needs a Stealth Upgrade Currently, only 12 percent of the U.S. Air Force fleet can operate in anti-access/area denial zones, according to National Defense Magazine. This poses a problem for the U.S., not only in terms of national security and protecting our fleet, but also when it comes to protecting our place in the world as a leader in military technology. In early 2017, the Air Force tasked Northrop Grumman with building a new stealth fighter called the B-21 Raider. According to National Defense Magazine, the B-21 Raider "is expected to give the Pentagon a new long-range strike system that can carry nuclear or conventional weapons deep into well-defended enemy airspace and not get shot down ... Pentagon officials have said ... they expect the aircraft to achieve initial operating capability in the mid-2020s." Another potential win for the Air Force would be adapting current A2/AD capabilities to meet modern-day challenges. While the B-21 is in production, the B-2 fighters are testing modifications to their Defense Management System, which uses sensors, software and other radar-evading technology to preserve and expand their stealth abilities. The upgrades would integrate new technology and modernize the fleet, said Military.com. Meeting the Challenge Ideally, counterinsurgency methods like working with international partners to expand areas of operations and gathering intelligence to develop strategies would be at the forefront of any plan of action, according to The Royal Swedish Academy of Air Sciences. At the same time, mainstream counterinsurgency isn't enough; defense systems and stealth technology need upgrades to match the threatening parties' technology so that both tactics can work together in the fight against aggressors. Meeting the challenges A2/AD zones provide is a long game, one that needs smart technology to counteract the actions being taken by other players. While we grow our arsenals and expand our own capabilities, it's important to keep a watchful eye on the growth and advancements of other countries' assets and how they are using them to wield power.

Combating Area Denial Zones: US Air Force Stealth Fleet Needs Upgrade

Key Takeaways An electric airplane is cleaner than its fuel-based counterpart but is limited in range by battery weight. Hybrid planes can reduce fuel consumption by 50% to 70% and maintenance costs by 25%. Smaller training craft are ideal for current battery capacities. Regional, commercial adoption of electric planes is likely in the next 10 years.According to the Environmental Protection Agency, airplanes account for approximately 9% of U.S. transportation emissions. And in 2022, aviation contributed 2% of human-generated CO2 emissions worldwide, per the International Energy Agency. Collectively, this means that aviation isn't on track to meet the target of net zero emissions by 2050.An electric airplane offers a cleaner — and quieter — alternative to traditional jet-fuel-powered planes. But what does this look like in practice? What challenges exist in the electric aircraft market, and how are they being addressed? When (if ever) should we expect to flip the switch from gas to electric flight?Getting Off the GroundThe idea of electric airplanes is not new, but the laws of physics remain a daunting challenge for this cleaner, quieter form of aviation."For an electric airplane, the top three priorities are weight, weight and weight," said Cory Combs, co-founder and chief technology officer of Los Angeles-based Ampaire, Inc. "It has to spend a lot of its energy just keeping itself in the air."The fundamental challenge is that an electric plane has to carry enough battery power to let it take off carrying a payload of passengers or cargo, fly at a reasonable speed and then travel a sufficient distance (approximately 100 miles) to make it commercially viable. Bigger battery packs mean more distance but a reduced ability to carry people and cargo. Smaller batteries reduce the weight but lower the total flight distance.This energy requirement is exacerbated by federal rules set by the Code of Federal Regulations that require planes to carry enough fuel to fly for 30 minutes (day) or 45 minutes (night) after reaching their intended destination.Making Contact with Reality"Lithium-ion batteries are the current state-of-the-art stored energy technology for aviation," said Dr. Ajay Misra, deputy director and research and engineering directorate of NASA's Glenn Research Center, "the same type of technology used in cells phones and electric cars."For aviation, Misra added, the relevant measure of battery suitability is called pack specific energy, also referred to as pack gravimetric energy density. A pack contains thousands of battery cells. The units of pack specific energy are watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg).According to Misra, the pack specific energy of the most commonly used lithium-ion batteries today is about 150 to 170 Wh/kg. By contrast, the specific energy of jet fuel is nearly 12,000 Wh/kg, which is about 70 to 80 times more energy-dense than lithium-ion batteries.Keeping the Noise DownAirplane engines are notoriously noisy. According to Purdue University, sound from a radio or TV typically comes in at 70 decibels (dB). The average human pain threshold for sound is 110 dB (16 times louder than 70 dB). A turbofan aircraft taking off 200 feet away, meanwhile, registers at an uncomfortable 118 dB.An electric airplane engine could help address this issue. A study from the University of Waterloo found that an approaching Piper Arrow plane registered at just over 85 dB, and an all-electric Pipistrel Velis Electro came in at less than 65 dB.It's worth noting, however, that engines aren't the only source of noise from electric aircraft. Propellers, mechanical flaps and landing gear all produce some sound. In addition, the batteries in electric planes make them heavier than their fuel-based counterparts, which produce more noise when taxiing on the ground or preparing for takeoff.Giving Wings to Hybrid ElectricAmpaire's solution to the weight/range dilemma of electric airplanes is what they call a parallel hybrid-electric propulsion system. It includes both a conventional internal combustion engine and an electric motor with a scalable battery pack."We believe that the dramatic drop in operating costs and noise levels associated with hybrid-electric propulsion could also lead to the revitalization of regional air travel," he said. Using hybrid-electric aircraft, he calculates, airlines could provide less expensive and more frequent passenger and cargo services between smaller, regional airports.As an example, Combs points to Ampaire's first commercial product, the Electric EEL, a six-seat Cessna 337 Skymaster retrofitted with the company's hybrid-electric system. The Electric EEL flew for the first time in May 2019. In 2023, the EEL completed a continuous 12-hour flight of 1,195 nautical miles, as noted by Flight Global. Upon landing, the craft still had two hours of battery power in reserve.Training the FutureColorado-based Bye Aerospace has taken a different approach to matching the maturity of battery technology to the needs of the general aviation markets. The company is developing a two-seat, lithium-ion-powered training aircraft called the eFlyer 2."Over the next 20 years, the airline industry expects a five-fold increase in the demand for commercial pilots from the 155,000 such pilots flying today," explained Bye Aerospace founder and CEO George E. Bye. "We're meeting this need by developing a trainer aircraft that's five times less expensive to operate than two-seat trainers in service today. And it produces no air pollution and no noise using modern technology."Plugging AwayHow soon can we expect electric airplanes to become a ubiquitous part of our lives and begin turning the tide on climate change?"Within 10 years, we will likely see hybrid-electric regional jets capable of flying 500 miles," projected Misra. "Larger, all-electric passenger jets, however, are not likely before 2040, as significant advances in battery technology will be required."Discover how we're defining possible for the next generation of aerospace engineering.

The Electric Airplane Promises Cleaner, Quieter Travel

The rock band or the doomed blimp? Hydrogen explosions and catchy melodic hooks have hijacked our thinking about the term "Zeppelin." Visceral television coverage of the Hindenburg disaster — and its scale — have largely overwritten the more storied tales of these luxurious sky kings. Consider the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin: 90 years ago, this lighter-than-air craft made history with the first passenger-carrying flight around the globe and pumped up worldwide interest.  Building a Better Zeppelin Airship  Built by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin and completed in 1928, the LZ 127 was named after airship pioneer Count (Graf) Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Designed using the basic plan of the LZ 126 — which was supplied to the United States and commissioned the USS Los Angeles as war reparations — the LZ 127 was also built using triangular duralumin girders and rings spaced 15 meters apart. When completed, the craft was 776 feet long and 110 feet high, making it the largest airship in the world.  As noted by Airships.net, size was the priority: The long, thin hull of the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin was not aerodynamically ideal and was subject to bending stress. Designers wanted to maximize the ship's fuel-carrying capacity and would have likely made the Zeppelin even larger if they weren't constrained by the construction shed at Friedrichschafen — which had interior dimensions of 787 feet long and 115 feet high.  This Zeppelin airship also used a new type of fuel for its combustion engines, called "Blau gas" after its inventor. With a similar weight to air, burning Blau gas meant airship personnel didn't have to account for the loss in weight as heavier-than-air fuel burned, which ordinarily necessitated the regular venting (and therefore loss) of lifting gas. When completed, the LZ 127 was capable of reaching altitudes of up to 6,000 feet and speeds of 72 miles-per-hour.  Grafs Gone (World)Wide  Once cleared for active service the Graf Zeppelin began making history; on Oct. 11, 1928, it completed the first commercial passenger flight across the Atlantic in 111 hours and 44 minutes. And in 1929, the LZ 127 conquered another first: A worldwide journey with passengers on board. Starting and ending in Lakehurst, New Jersey, the worldwide trip took just 12 days and 11 minutes of flying time. Refueling was accomplished at pre-planned landings along the way, such as Friedrichschafen and Tokyo.  But things didn't always go as planned. In Los Angeles, captain Hugo Eckener was forced to land during a temperature inversion, which required the ship to vent large quantities of hydrogen that couldn't be immediately replaced. As a result, the craft was much heavier than usual on takeoff and nearly crashed into a string of power lines.  The LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin didn't stop there — in July 1931 the ship made a trip to the North Pole, allowing scientists to photograph unmapped Arctic regions, conduct meteorological observations and measure magnetic field variations. And until 1937 — the Hindenburg disaster — the LZ 127 flew regular flights from Germany to South America. During its lifetime, the Zeppelin airship made nearly 600 trips and flew more than a million miles.  Catching the Fever  What Zeppelins lacked in sleek aerodynamics and simplicity of use, they made up for in stability of flight, comfort and the ability to carry large volumes of cargo, crew and passengers around the world. So it's no surprise that the massive LZ 127 — effectively a proof-of-concept for its size and the use of Blau gas — captured public interest. Extensive documentation of its globe-trotting flight only increased this Zeppelin affection, especially since Captain Eckener had a flair for the dramatic, timing his flight through San Francisco's Golden Gate with the sun setting behind the ship. As Eckener put it: "When for the first time in world history an airship flies across the Pacific, should it not arrive at sunset over the Golden Gate?"  Despite the LZ 127's innovative design and historic accomplishments, however, the use of hydrogen as lifting gas meant it was only a matter of time before leaky balloons and errant sparks caused a serious problem. On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg exploded over Manchester Township, and on June 18 of that same year, the LZ 127 had her farewell flight — from Friedrichshafen to Frankfurt — until being stripped for parts by the Luftwaffe in 1940.  Ballooning Interest  Airships had a simple problem: Hydrogen is highly flammable and dangerously explosive under pressure.  But there's a (relatively) easy fix — helium. With 92% of hydrogen's lifting power and none of the flammability, this noble gas is the perfect alternative. In the 1930s, however, helium supply was largely controlled by the U.S. and sharing it with the Germans wasn't seen as strategically sound. Today, however, helium isn't so heavily regulated, making it the go-to lifting gas for next-gen Zeppelins.  The result? Commercial and consumer interest in airships is on the rise. As noted by CNN, Goodyear recently updated its fleet with their "NT" models, which come complete with fly-by-wire steering, more comfortable seats and — finally — a lavatory. And Luftschiffbau Zeppelin itself is back in the airship business, running 12 routes across Germany and Switzerland for 21,000 tourists every year. Still, CEO Michael Schieschke gets asked the same question every day: Do the airships still use hydrogen, and will helium burn? Despite the ongoing concern, he believes that "most of the public understands that these aircraft are safe now."  In fact, helium-powered craft align extremely well with current economic conditions: Zeppelins can make long flights for low cost, are virtually noiseless, produce limited emissions and can lift massive amounts of cargo. From both environmental stewardship and expenditure management perspectives, the rigid airship renaissance makes sense.  We Have Liftoff  Zeppelin airships represented a breakthrough in aeronautic technologies, introducing comfort and control never before seen in airborne vehicles. The LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin marked the pinnacle of hydrogen-powered travel, breaking transatlantic, global and even polar records during its nine-year service. Ninety years later, new corporate investment is driving the development of Zeppelin features and designs — much like the burgeoning commercialization of space flight, renewed private-sector commitments offer the potential for both travel at scale and scientific discovery. 

The Legacy of Zeppelin Airship Innovation

Key Takeaways Less than 1% of the atmosphere at airplane cruising altitudes has severe turbulence. Cell phones not in airplane mode won't make the plane crash. Planes are designed to withstand and disperse lightning strikes.When you're hurtling through the sky in a steel tube at 500 miles per hour, it's easy to get in your own head, start believing myths about flying and obsess over what could go wrong. Even aviation experts get scared sometimes."For folks who suffer a fear of flying, myself included, just remember this statistic," said Chris Leeper, Civil Aviation program manager at Northrop Grumman. "The odds of you being involved in an accident while flying are one in 11,000,000, whereas the odds of you being involved in an accident while driving are one in 200!"While statistical reassurance can calm shaken nerves, let's take it one step further by looking at three common myths about flying, debunked by science, to help you keep your cool the next time you're in the air.Myth #1: Flying Through Turbulence Is DangerousIs turbulence dangerous? What happens if your plane hits turbulence? It's a common occurrence, but for those afraid of flying, even small wobbles and shakes can become the stuff of nightmares. Thankfully, turbulence is (almost) all bump and no bite.According to Weather.gov, "turbulence is an irregular motion of the air resulting from eddies and vertical currents." It has four primary causes: Mechanical turbulence, which creates eddies due to friction between the air and the ground. Thermal turbulence, which occurs when different surface types heat unevenly, causing convective currents. Frontal turbulence, which happens when warm air is lifted along the sloping frontal surface of a cold air mass, in turn creating friction. Wind shear, which is a rapid change in wind direction, speed or both over a specific distance.Turbulence is also divided into four intensities: light, moderate, severe and extreme. As reported by NPR, Paul Williams, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Reading, says that only 3% of the atmosphere has light turbulence at airplane cruising altitudes. Just 1% has moderate turbulence, and only a few tenths of a percent have either severe or extreme turbulence.Even in cases where planes encounter severe turbulence, modern aircraft remain safe. NPR notes that just 34 passengers and 129 crew members were injured by turbulence from 2009 to 2022. And, according to data from the Federal Aviation Administration, more than 2.9 million passengers take flight in the U.S. every day — making turbulence-related injury incredibly unlikely.Myth #2: Phones Not in Airplane Mode Cause Navigation IssuesIn the early days of cell phones, there was concern that their mobile frequencies could cause problems for avionics and ground communications networks. While aviation technology has significantly improved since the Federal Communications Commission first banned in-flight phone calls in 1991, U.S. airlines still require passengers to switch their personal devices to airplane mode. Other parts of the world, meanwhile, have tossed this rule — in 2022, the European Commission allowed airlines to provide 5G connectivity in the air for phone calls and high-speed data, according to the Washington Post.Why does airplane mode exist? If passengers take their phones off airplane mode (therefore enabling the transmitter), it won't make the plane crash, but it could annoy the pilots and air traffic controllers."This annoyance is due to the potential noise you may be inducing into the radio transmissions," Leeper said. "If you've ever had your phone near an audio system, you may have heard the 'ticking' sound that's created due to the parasitic demodulation." This noise could make it into the radio transmissions between the pilots and air traffic controllers.If that's the concern, then why allow planes to offer Wi-Fi connections? Leeper has the answer: "The phone's radio emissions are much stronger (~8W) versus the Wi-Fi signal (~100mW)."Myth #3: Lightning Storms Can Short-Circuit AircraftLightning strikes commercial planes an average of once or twice a year, according to Weather.gov. The good news is that planes are designed to withstand the inevitable storm. In addition to standard electromagnetic interference protection, a plane's electrical components and fuel tanks are grounded to prevent electrical arcs, and the body of the plane is effectively a container that blocks electromagnetic fields, known as a Faraday cage. If planes are struck by lightning, they must undergo mandatory inspection for damage before they are cleared again for flight.When lightning hits a plane, it might cause some minor structural damage, but a commercial plane hasn't crashed in the U.S. as a result of a lightning strike since 1967, according to Scientific American. Modern commercial aircraft designs have incorporated many precautions that put safety first."The key safety measure is designing the aircraft body to allow for energy dissipation and proper grounding. We want to prevent the formation of electric arcs, which could ignite vapors in the fuel tanks or knock out sensitive flight management systems," said Leeper. "Airframes have incorporated metal strips connecting all the structural features of the airframe, which work to create a Faraday cage and block electric charge from passing through the airframe."Why do pilots turn on the seatbelt sign when they encounter turbulence? So you don't accidentally fall down. Why does airplane mode exist? To keep communication channels clear. Why are planes big metal tubes when they sometimes fly through lightning storms? Because they act to quickly disperse lightning strikes.Why are myths about flying so common? Because when we're not in control, we tend to fixate on the worst-case scenario. Science, however, says otherwise: While plane myths are popular, they can be definitively debunked.Don't myth your chance for fear of flying — it's time for your career to take off with Northrop Grumman. Discover how we're defining possible in the air.

Common Myths About Flying, Debunked by Science

To explore the boundaries of science fiction and the real world of science, technology and engineering, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Los Angeles-Las Vegas Section recently hosted an event in California called "Sci-Fi vs Sci-Tech." Aerospace engineer Aldo Spadoni attended the event as a panelist and moderator.  Humanity has embarked on a Second Space Age, fueled by new technology developments and both private and government space exploration initiatives. What has inspired people to push the boundaries of human imagination and accomplishment? Science fiction films and television shows like "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" have always been a major source of fascination and inspiration; they've also influenced many to pursue sci-tech careers. "Sci-Fi vs Sci-Tech" was organized by Ken Lui, AIAA LA-LV Section events chairman, with support from Robert Friend, LA-LV Section chairman. The event featured a panel of experts including Rod Pyle, space author and historian; Rick Sternbach, space and science fiction artist; Harriet Brettle, CalTech planetary sciences graduate student; Madhu Thangavelu, USC professor; Dr. Rostislav Spektor, project leader and research scientist; and Allan Grosvenor, senior aerodynamics engineer. The meeting began with a look back at the Apollo 11 Moon landing and Viking 1 Mars landing, in celebration of the 49th and 42nd anniversaries of those events, respectively. On hand were former Apollo and Viking program engineers Robert L. Norcross Jr. and Gary Moir; they provided first-hand recollections of the many challenges involved while working on these amazing programs. Back to the Future The event was well attended, with great audience interaction and wide-ranging discussions. Pyle started with a look at past visions of the future, providing examples from the 1930s and 1940s including humanoid robots, flying cars and cities in the sky. "I thought it might be instructive to look at how we envisioned the future in decades past, and from this, we might learn something about how to look ahead. While these early visions had some elements of accuracy, our future turned out to be much more about miniaturization, digitization, big city congestion and a turn to rampant consumerism. But we do have GPS and texting," he said with a wink. Humans Versus Robots The panelists fielded a number of questions related to the human role in space exploration. The space environment remains extremely hostile to humans, so why continue to pursue human space exploration at great expense and risk? At least for the immediate future, humans have proven to be far more adept and flexible than robots at onsite data gathering and assessment. Beyond exploration, venturing into space is also about assuring human survival by establishing permanent colonies. Thangavelu provided some insights into how we might safely live and thrive on the Moon. Most science fiction films typically portray future humans that appear and behave much the same as they do now. In the future, however, spacefaring humans might be drastically altered to better function in the space environment. Imagine human minds downloaded into miniaturized robots, which Pyle likened to "robotic cockroaches with human brains." The Challenges Ahead The panelists generally agreed that an expanded human presence in the solar system will require the ability to travel quickly, safely and efficiently. Spektor provided an overview of promising advances in electric/plasma rocket propulsion technology. Other options discussed included nuclear thermal and pulse rockets, and laser-driven solar sails that could potentially push tiny micro-spacecraft on interstellar missions. Science fiction films are not always optimistic, and there has been a general trend toward dystopian visions of the future. Pyle noted that "we can and should do better, looking to the future and clearing a path for what we might achieve if we can spot some aspirational, pro-social goals." The Frontiers of Imagination Science fiction can still portray a positive future with characters overcoming adversity, inspiring interest in space exploration and the pursuit of technical careers. "As an artist who has worked in both science fiction as well as real sci-tech, I am amazed and excited about the ways that the two areas inform and inspire each other," Sternbach said. "Scientific observations and innovations in real technology drive science fiction to imagine what might be possible. At the same time, dreams of new air and space vehicles, destinations, materials and processes help scientists and engineers bring those dreams into reality," Sternbach added. Attendees were treated to a surprise visit by none other than Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who shared his ideas for efficient space transportation infrastructure in the vicinity of the Earth and moon. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Los Angeles-Las Vegas Section plans to host similar local events in the future.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Explores Sci-Fi Versus Sci-Tech

Key Takeaways Commercial drone delivery service to your house or neighborhood is an increasingly popular way to order goods. In-flight safety and collision avoidance, especially over populated areas, are more important features than drone tech advances. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is collaborating with drone operators to create a safe air traffic management system for drone flights.Don't look up now, but drone delivery service is landing a different future in your front yard, one that will keep your pizza hot, save you a late-night trip to the pharmacy or even help you save a life with emergency medical supplies.On the RunwayIn recent years, several well-known companies, such as Walmart and Amazon, have been launching commercial drone-based delivery solutions and taking serious steps toward making delivery by drone a feasible option on the mass market.The government has also been involved in making this a reality: In March 2020, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorized UPS and drone maker Matternet to begin using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to deliver medical supplies. Since then, UPS has also embarked on commercial home deliveries in California, according to Commercial UAV News, and Google spinoff Wing Aviation received the FAA's first certification in 2020 for a commercial drone delivery service.Safety FirstHovering amid this new enthusiasm for drone-based delivery services, however, are questions about air traffic safety, particularly for densely populated areas."The FAA is responsible for the safety and security of all aircraft in the National Airspace System," said an FAA spokesperson. "Our long-term goal is to integrate drones safely into that system so our society can reap the full benefits of drone technology."Integration ChallengesRecently, drone technology has greatly improved, but integration into airspace remains challenging, explained Doug Davis, director of airworthiness and airspace integration for Northrop Grumman, a developer of autonomous aircraft systems."If you're going to operate new aircraft, you need to operate them within the same framework of operational risk and requirements that apply to all aircraft operating in domestic airspace," he said.Davis's concern is not technical maturity but rather flights over populated areas."Many of these new operators are coming into the field from a purely business perspective, with no aviation background at all," he explained. "They often don't understand what's in the air with them."His fears, compounded by the limited ability of drones to avoid collisions in flight, are shared by the FAA."Several companies have developed technology to automatically detect and avoid other aircraft, but it's still maturing," admitted the FAA spokesperson. "Solving that challenge would allow longer flights beyond a pilot's visual line of sight and help enable routine drone delivery."A review published in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems highlights that research into this potential hazard is ongoing.Encouraging InnovationTo create an air traffic safety environment for public safety and drone delivery service success, the FAA is working closely with drone operators to define new regulations for safety and innovation."For drones, we're focusing on the top-level safety performance we expect rather than dictating a detailed aircraft design," explained the FAA spokesperson.This approach encourages drone operators to meet overall safety and operational requirements while not discouraging new, more innovative ways to deliver products and services, the spokesperson added.Flying ForwardUPS is also building public confidence in drone-based services."UPS has conducted numerous public drone demonstrations for urgent commercial and non-urgent residential deliveries," said Kyle Peterson, a UPS spokesperson. "We also partner with GAVI and Zipline to deliver blood products by drone to remote locations in Africa. These efforts help shape and inform evolving drone policy in the U.S."Current FAA safety regulations prohibit drones from operating over populated areas or beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) without an FAA waiver. Since August 2023, UPS has been cleared to fly BVLOS, as reported by Popular Science.Managing the FutureAny drone for package delivery must obtain an FAA airworthiness certificate. The FAA recognizes, however, that it is operating in a dynamic, technology-driven environment, where the pressure to integrate drones safely and efficiently into the national airspace is increasing every day.Working with NASA's Ames Research Center and other federal agencies, the FAA developed the Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) system. The project wrapped in May 2021, laying the initial groundwork for a "safe, well-connected sky.""The UTM system is an automated, machine-to-machine system that does not rely on air traffic controllers," said NASA Ames's Marcus Johnson, deputy project manager for NASA's UTM program. "It relies instead on drones to self-report their positions and flight activities to a group of federated UAS service suppliers on the ground."Reality CheckAccording to Johnson, UTM testing revealed that drone operations remain vulnerable to "microclimates" and radio frequency (RF) interference."If you operate a drone in dense urban environments, you're likely to encounter a diverse set of small, localized weather patterns," Johnson said. "These microclimates can really challenge your situational awareness of current flight conditions, particularly if you're operating the drone BVLOS."Urban density may also limit an operator's options for landing a drone quickly and safely. And RF interference poses a threat."For command and control, drone operators often use the same unlicensed frequency bands — 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz — used by residential or commercial Wi-Fi routers," explained Johnson. If a drone flies too close to an office building where such routers are in use, it can experience a sudden loss of communication with its operator, creating safety hazards for people on the ground. RF interference is also found in common building materials.Writing a New ChapterThe final step in integrating drones safely into the national airspace is the transition to the UTM rules of engagement. The FAA continues to explore UTM as a way to collaboratively move forward, evaluating industry proposals in early 2023. An evaluation project comprising a consortium of industry operators is taking place in North Texas, with participants exploring multiple drone services with overlapping BVLOS operations.For its part, the FAA is cautiously optimistic about the future of commercial drone operations."Societal acceptance of drones will be predicated on the public's expectation for safety, just as in the airline industry," said the FAA spokesperson. "Working together, we can accelerate the development of the UTM ecosystem and usher in the necessary social transformation. It's an exciting challenge as we integrate unmanned aircraft into our nation's airspace and help write a new chapter in aviation history."Northrop Grumman is a recognized leader in autonomous systems; learn how our solutions help customers meet a growing number of missions.

Is Drone Delivery Service Safe Enough for Takeoff?

Flying from New York to London in a 747 jumbo jet takes a little over six hours. The supersonic Concorde could manage the trip in about three hours. Could a hypersonic commercial plane make the trip in just 90 minutes?
A number of aviation companies are racing to bring hypersonic air travel to the public, but first, they must solve some massive engineering challenges.
What Is Hypersonic Speed?
At sea level, the speed of sound is 761.2 mph, assuming an air temperature of 59° F (15° C). For ease of comparison, this can be referred to as "Mach 1."
According to NerdWallet, a 747 jumbo jet has a maximum speed of Mach 0.86, which is about 86% of the speed of sound. The Concorde could cruise at Mach 2.02 — more than twice the speed of sound. Any object that travels faster than Mach 1 is supersonic and will create a sonic boom when it crosses from Mach 0.99 to Mach 1.01.
Anything that travels faster than Mach 5 — five times the speed of sound — is considered to be hypersonic. The transition isn't marked by anything as dramatic as a sonic boom, but it's when the physics gets really weird compared to Mach 1.
Breaking Speed Records
A variety of military aircraft have broken Mach 5, but these have mostly been unmanned rockets. For aircraft with a human on board, the current record of Mach 6.7 was set back in 1969 by the X-15. This was essentially a rocket with a seat launched from altitude by a B-52 and then brought up to speed by a rocket engine.
As described in Physics Today, the record-setting flight generated so much friction that a portion of the aircraft melted, causing a test engine to break loose and fall to the ground. The pilot survived, but the incident showed how risky hypersonic flight can be — precisely because scientists don't understand the interactions between all the forces involved. This remains true today.
For a proper plane — with an engine that can manage to take off and land with a pilot on board — the speed record of Mach 3.3 was set by the SR-71 Blackbird in 1976. This fighter jet was made of titanium with quartz windows to withstand the 600° F exterior temperatures generated by supersonic flight. The supersonic SR-71 Blackbird obviously provided inspiration for Hollywood's fictional SR-72 Darkstar, the hypersonic jet that Tom Cruise flies in "Top Gun: Maverick."
Building a Hypersonic Jet
Companies in the United States and Europe have reported technological advances intended for use in hypersonic military equipment or hypersonic commercial planes. The tricky part to achieving Mach 5 and above, though, is building an engine that can gear up to those speeds successfully. Ramjet engines, for instance, have been used for decades, but they don't work at speeds below Mach 3. However, it might be possible to combine a ramjet with a turbojet engine.
A turbojet engine typically uses rotating blades to compress oxygen-containing air, so it can be mixed with fuel and ignited. The resulting jet of hot gas pushes the plane forward. Above Mach 3, the air is moving so fast that rotating blades become unnecessary. That's where the ramjet engine could kick in and take over, slowing the air down to subsonic speeds to make ignition of the hydrogen fuel more manageable.

Together, these engines could work to achieve Mach 5. Building a hybrid engine that can transition seamlessly from turbojet mode to ramjet mode would be a major step toward the goal of unlocking hypersonic air travel, but a future where a hypersonic commercial plane can take us anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes is still far off.
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Are We Nearing the Age of Hypersonic Air Travel?

 Drone warfare is about to change in ways that could change the nature of warfare itself.  Right now, ISIS has figured out how to weaponize off-the-shelf drones, using quadcopters to drop bombs on Iraqi soldiers. Their use of attack drones has made the hobbyist aircraft the latest asymmetrical threat, evolving from use for reconnaissance into a scaled-down, $200 version of the attack drones used widely by the U.S. military in the Middle East.  With help from U.S. targeting technology, Iraqi fighters have been able to destroy some of those drones on the wing, Defense Systems reported in a February 2017 article. But the U.S. military is looking at more innovative ways to stop drone attacks. A system that jams radio transmissions used to control drones is already in testing, and the Pentagon would like to find other ways to protect targets from attack.  Each year, the Department of Defense hosts Black Dart, a live-fly, live-fire exercise for testing new counter-drone technology. Among the defenses against attack drones demonstrated there in 2016 was Northrop Grumman's Mobile Application for UAS Identification (MAUI). According to GlobalNewswire, it's a "mobile acoustic sensor that operates on Android cellphones and uses the phone's microphone to detect Group 1 drones" — those that weigh less than 20 pounds, fly lower than 1,200 feet and fly slower than 100 knots.   Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  In November, DARPA issued a request for proposals for a $63-million contract to develop drone-defense systems for military convoys, RT reported. One of the challenges is making such a system small and energy-efficient enough to ride aboard a Humvee or a 25-foot Coast Guard patrol boat.  France's military is developing a system that would satisfy that requirement, and hearkens back to medieval arts of war. A French military unit has raised four golden eagles from chicks, training them to attack and bring down drones, the Washington Post reports. If you saw the viral video of one drone's final moments in 2014, you know how effective birds of prey can be against your average quadcopter. [skyword_iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AhDG_WBIQgc" width="560" height="315" ]  But the Pentagon isn't interested in eagles. The RFP specifically states that DARPA won't consider any proposals that use live animals. Lasers are also out.  Beyond defending against asymmetrical attacks using off-the-shelf drones turned deadly, the Pentagon may be looking ahead to defending against the next generation of attack drones. A system the Pentagon is developing, called Perdix, would employ a swarm of AI drones, each not much bigger than the size of a human hand. The drones, called Perdix, can communicate with each other, and learn and adapt to conditions in order to locate targets and communicate with weapons systems elsewhere, CBS reported.  Defending against an attack like that will require new technology — a fact demonstrated by an unnamed U.S. ally that used a $3-million Patriot missile to take down a $200 attack drone, as reported by Business Insider.  "You have maybe 100 or 1,000 surface-to-air missiles," Col. Travis Burdine, Air Force division chief for unmanned aircraft, said in April 2017, according to FlightGlobal. "But we're going to hit you with 10,000 [drones]."  That kind of tactic could be used to penetrate a nation's radar defenses, Burdine said, with some drones acting as decoys, others as target finders and still others carrying weapons, themselves.  Be at the forefront of cutting-edge research and development in drone technology by joining the team at Northrop Grumman.

An Answer to ISIS Attack Drones and a New Kind of Aerial Warfare

The auto industry is developing alternatives (i.e. hybrid and electric) to the gasoline-powered engine. But pollution from aircraft is often overlooked. Solar flight could be one solution to this problem.Aircraft PollutionWhile cars and coal-fired power plants are worse for the environment, according to Yale Climate Connections, flying does significant harm. A 2010 study from the University of Cambridge and MIT estimated that the emissions from cruising aircraft alone were responsible for around 8,000 premature deaths each year. That estimate doesn't include deaths from the pollution caused when aircraft take off and land. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, airplanes may generate 43 gigatons of pollution by 2050 — nearly 5 percent of earth's remaining carbon budget.Tweaking MaterialsResearchers and industry are looking for ways to reduce planes' use of fuel, according to National Geographic, including more energy-efficient engines, more aerodynamic shapes and even a coating that would prevent bugs from sticking to the fuselage, thereby reducing drag. Simply being more operationally efficient could save a lot of fuel and reduce emissions, according to PBS.Instead of incremental measures, some innovators want to change the very nature of aircraft.One milestone in this search began back in 1982, when Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan started to develop an aircraft that could fly around the world without stopping or refueling. To do this, he needed to design the lightest, most efficient plane possible. The plane, christened Voyager, used an innovative construction method, according to the Experimental Aircraft Association: a sandwich of paper honeycomb and graphite fiber that was molded and oven-cured. The resulting craft weighed just 939 pounds, sans fuel.The Voyager, piloted by Burt's brother Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager, successfully completed its trans-global flight on December 23, 1986, after flying nonstop for nine days. Today, Scaled Composites is part of Northrop Grumman and continues to push the envelope of the possible through rapid prototyping using advanced materials.Solar FlightWhile measures to reduce fuel and emissions are necessary, some have a bigger dream: flying with clean, renewable energy from the sun.In 2004, Bertrand Picard, a Swiss psychiatrist who had previously company-piloted the first trans-global flight in a balloon, set out to prove the viability of solar energy by flying around the world in an aircraft powered only by the sun.Working with André© Borschberg, a Swiss entrepreneur and pilot, began work on a solar plane. In July 2005, their first plane, the Solar Impulse, completed a flight from Hawaii to Japan in five days. It was the longest solo solar flight in history.In 2016, Bertrand Piccard and Borschberg set out again. This time, they overcame the challenges and Picard completed the 40,000 kilometer flight, this time solo.On completing the flight, Picard told the Guardian, "I hope people will understand that it is not just a first in the history of aviation, but also a first in the history of energy."What's Next?Picard remains committed to furthering the development of solar-powered and clean-energy travel. In November 2016, his organization launched the World Alliance for Clean Technologies during the UN Climate Conference.Solar Flight is another company working on sun-powered aircraft. It's developing planes for high-altitude, long-distance flights and a six-seat transport craft. It successfully completed a multi-stop, trans-American journey in 1989 and has successfully flown a two-seater.Meanwhile, the sky isn't quite the limit. In December 2016, Raphaé«l Domjan, a self-described eco-adventurer, unveiled SolarStratos, which he hopes will be the first manned, solar-powered airplane to penetrate the stratosphere.All this innovation relies on industry to come up with lighter, stronger materials, more advanced sun-powered engines and more efficient solar cells. The goal of cleaner skies through solar flight could be within our reach.

Could Solar Flight Clean the Skies?

Many of the first women in STEM careers did not get the recognition they deserved at the time because traditional gender roles kept them out of the spotlight. Geraldine M. Hoch — or Gerry for short — was one of the earliest female STEM professionals to work for Northrop Grumman. She was a chemical engineer who invented new ways to prevent corrosion on aircraft and was a key player in Snark — a groundbreaking intercontinental cruise missile program that led to the development of one of the first digital computers and early gyroscopic and astronomical guidance systems. "At the time, her job title was administrative staff. Today, it would probably be VP of research," says Lynn Jenson, Project Manager and Advisor to the Board of the Western Museum of Flight. Early Life and Career According to her obituary, Geraldine Marie (Holm) Hoch was born on June 10, 1924 in Independence, Missouri. She was a studious child who graduated from high school at age 15, earning an award for being the best English student in her school. She was interested in math and science, although she grew up during a time when career options for women were mostly homemaker, teacher or librarian. After high school, she attended Southwest Missouri State Teacher's College and was selected for "Who's Who for Colleges and Universities" in 1940. She excelled in math and science and taught physics at Air Force classes at the age of 17. After graduating with honors degrees in physics and mathematics, Gerry was hired by Bendix to work in the research and development department. She left Missouri to seek better aerospace career opportunities and headed to Los Angeles, California. She was hired by Northrop Aviation and worked alongside founder Jack Northrop. She could often be found in the laboratory and at ribbon-cutting ceremonies as part of a publicity campaign to promote the company's efforts to recruit women during and following World War II. She met Harry Edward Hoch, an industrial engineer, at a restaurant where employees met to carpool to work. They ended up agreeing to purchase a car together to help with the commute, and eventually they moved closer to Northrop and got married. Later, they moved back to Kansas in 1952 to start a family. Gerry took time off while she had three babies, and then she returned to work a few years after her youngest was born so she could contribute financially while her husband started a business. Back in Kansas, she got a job at Midwest Research Institute where she worked on new materials and techniques to support the space program. She brought home samples of freeze-dried hamburger so her kids could try astronaut food, and she brought home a few laboratory mice that became her children's pets. Although she was recognized for her professional talents, she wasn't paid fairly. At the time, men were often paid better salaries because they were considered the default head of household. Midwest Research Institute told her that, because she was earning a secondary income for her family, she would be paid an administrative salary. An Industry Leader Hoch left Midwest Research Institute and was hired at Lockheed, which quadrupled her salary and hired her as a Research Scientist specializing in metallurgy. She specialized in corrosion research and helped design methods for aircraft to identify and inhibit erosion on aircraft skins to prevent catastrophic damage. Gerry and her team earned patents and received royalty checks for this invention. "She was a key person at Lockheed in coming up with a new, innovative way to protect airliners from corrosion, and at Northrop Grumman, she likely contributed to the fuselage panels for the 747," says Jenson. He adds, "I'm sure that we used her process in manufacturing those 747 skins, I suspect that on that program she could have also been involved with the jet propulsion." In an era with very limited opportunities for women in STEM, she was honored and recognized as an industry expert. In 1971, she received an invitation addressed to Mr. Geraldine Hoch that asked her to present a paper at the NATO conference. She accepted the invitation and traveled to Belgium to speak to scientists and engineers about her work. Hoch suffered from cancer but continued to work at Lockheed while she was sick. She died on May 3, 1973 at age 48 in Los Angeles. Diversity and Innovation The legacy of Geraldine M. Hoch demonstrates the lasting benefits of a more inclusive workplace. As one of the first women in STEM, she contributed to aircraft manufacturing best practices such as corrosion prevention that are still in place today. Her career serves as an early example of the positive impact a diverse culture can have on the STEM fields. "When we include [women] in these programs, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts," says Jenson. "You have a synergistic effect. The more diverse you can be, the more innovative you're going to be." Being on the forefront of change, especially regarding space, physics, and engineering has been part of the Northrop Grumman culture for generations. Click here to search jobs in these areas of scientific innovation. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery in science, technology, and engineering.

Innovative Women in STEM: Geraldine M. Hoch

Sensors are usually embedded or hidden, so it's easy to take them for granted, but they are sophisticated devices that deserve a second look. The technology behind them has dramatically improved in the last couple decades and research and development continues to expand future capabilities. While the basic sensor has existed in various forms since the late 1800s, this century's version is smaller, more precise and more reliable. The latest versions are also multifunctional. Just like our smartphones are capable of doing much more than phone calls, a modern sensor can also multitask. Ed Eberl, Chief Technologist at Northrop Grumman's Amherst Systems unit explains, "At one instant a sensor could be acting as a communications link — transferring data back and forth — and then an instant later it could be acting like a radar tracking a target, and another instant later it can be jamming something, trying to detect someone else's communications." Sensors Are Everywhere With the Internet of Things, it might seem like sensors are already everywhere (from your coffee maker to your watch), but this is just the beginning. The optical sensing market is projected to grow to $3.46 billion by 2023 (three times greater than in 2016). Sensors are essential for consumer electronics such as wearable fitness trackers, virtual reality, smartphones and gadgets that haven't been invented yet. They are also increasingly used for industrial applications, such as allowing factories to automate manufacturing and shipping goods. There is massive potential in the medical field, since they can be used to provide doctors with detailed information about patients' health in real time. Sensors are components in the latest medical devices but they can also be embedded directly into the body to track heart rate, muscle movement and biomarkers. Many recent advancements in sensor technology were initiated by military projects. The Distributed Aperture System (DAS) sensor, for example, can give pilots the benefits of collision avoidance, weather tracking, night vision, ground mapping and early warnings of any incoming missile threats. While this type of high-tech situational awareness was originally meant for the military, similar technology is now being used by automakers to improve safety features and even create self-driving vehicles. Today's vehicles can already detect cars passing in blind spots and warn drivers if they drift into the wrong lane. Smart pressure sensors are a critical component to how airbags function in smart cars. Some automakers, such as Tesla, even offer autopilot mode for highway driving. No doubt, tomorrow's fully autonomous cars will be loaded with multifunction sensors. Sensor Technology Improved Modern challenges — whether in military or civilian settings — demand high-tech goods that require a sensor. Fortunately, two major factors have driven recent improvements in sensor technology. Researchers have greatly improved signal conversion, where you take a microwave signal and convert it into a digital format. The accuracy with which the latest devices can measure a radio frequency signal is constantly increasing because engineers keep developing faster and faster data converters. In addition to these more precise measurements, a second aspect has continued to improve at the same time: processing power. So now, better measurements are taken and they can be processed quickly on site or even in-flight. In the military, for example, there used to be intelligence platforms that would go out into the field and collect signals. This data would be recorded and sent back to an analysis center at a different ground location. Now, with the advancements in computing power and higher sampling rates, more information can be extracted in real time and analysis can be done right from the fighter jets. As sensors become more precise, the artifacts which hold them are becoming smaller, reducing the weight of the airframe. Another advancement in sensor technology is how multifunction sensor arrays are evolving. Typically, a set of sensors is assigned to work together to perform a task. A multifunction array is a collection of many smaller sensors, and each of these individual sensors can be independently assigned a specific task or function. The parameters of individual sensors can also be controlled to "point" the array in a desired direction. Think of a multifunction array as an LED light fixture. One LED bulb by itself may not be bright enough, but several of them can illuminate an entire area. Sensors work similarly. One of them may not be able to detect a target or signal, but a group of them working in unison provides increased sensitivity to perform a task. Because sensors play such an integral role in a variety devices and applications, advancements in their form and function are not only expected, but inevitable. Anticipating Future Capabilities What will a sensor be able to do in the next few years? Anything is possible. Eberl and his colleagues have to anticipate future capabilities. His team provides simulation and testing so that the engineers who are developing new devices can work out any bugs. One of these testing simulators — the Combat Electromagnetic Environment SIMulator (CEESIM) — provides RF simulation of multiple, simultaneous emitters so that engineers can see how their devices respond to the most complicated potential scenarios. The challenge is anticipating the many ways that a multifunction sensor will be used in the future. For example, recent improvements allow for a large array of individual sensors to be subdivided into multiple groups of sensors, each performing a different task. These types of array can perform multiple tasks simultaneously. Think of your cell phone and the multiple things you can do from this one device -- talk to a friend, while scrolling through an app to order dinner and have the big game streaming in the background -- all at the same time. Similarly, CEESIM needs to be able to test multiple different functions at the same time. "This is an exciting challenge for us," Eberl says, "to have to simulate all the different types of signals and different types of utilization of that sensor in a very dynamic environment because we as a simulator don't know what the sensor is going be doing from instant to instant." Check out opportunities to join Northrop Grumman's effort to predict the future at our career page.

The Incredible Shrinking Sensors and Their Massive Growth

Only one person can say they've both visited space and the deepest part of the ocean. In 1984, astronaut Kathy Sullivan was the first American woman to spacewalk. That experience wasn't even the peak of her career — it was only the beginning of it. She continued to become a leader in space and ocean exploration.  In June 2020, she became the first woman to travel to Challenger Deep, the deepest point in the ocean.   Foundation for Exploration  Kathryn Sullivan grew up during the space race and was fascinated by the people who explored the unknown.  "I was always following the early astronauts, Jacques Cousteau and the early aquanauts. They were inquisitive people," Sullivan told CNN Travel. "They were clever people that could figure out how to go make things happen."  Despite her curiosity for understanding how things work, and the fact that her father was an aerospace engineer, Sullivan never dreamed she would become an astronaut. She had many interests and a knack for learning languages. When she started college at the University of California, Santa Cruz, she intended to study Russian. Then she took an oceanography course to fulfill a science requirement for her degree. She loved the class so much that she pivoted to oceanography.  Next, she studied marine geology at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. While there, she mapped a portion of the sea floor and assisted with field research on the volcanic processes that make the ocean crust. Later, in an oral history interview for Johnson Space Center, she explained that her goal as a student was to eventually get into a research submarine and explore the bottom of the sea.  "That's what I was heading toward and aiming everything toward until NASA came along," she said.  New Frontiers in Space  While she worked toward her Ph.D., her brother, an avid pilot, encouraged her to apply to NASA. It was 1976, and the space administration started to recruit women and minorities. She was focused on oceanography and didn't expect to be selected, although she saw the parallels between the mission specialist role and oceanographic expeditions.  She joined NASA in 1978 as part of the first cohort of astronauts to include women, according to the New York Times. This launched a 15-year career in space. In 1984, she became the first American woman to walk in space when she floated outside the Challenger space shuttle to repair a part. Her career continued with a second historic mission in 1990. She was part of the Discovery space shuttle crew that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope in space for 30 years. (Soon to be succeeded by the James Webb Space Telescope.) She rounded out her time at NASA on the Space Shuttle Atlantis mission in 1992. In total, she logged 532 hours in space.  The Deepest Part of the Ocean  From the unique vantage point of space, she was more motivated than ever to understand and improve life on Earth, she explained in a lecture captured by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. After NASA, she returned to her original passion for oceanography. Just like the astronauts and aquanauts who she observed as a child, Sullivan felt called to explore the most desolate and unknown regions of the world.  According to Business Insider, after NASA, Sullivan served as chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In 2004, President George W. Bush appointed her to the National Science Board. Later, President Obama appointed her to serve as NOAA's deputy administrator in 2011, and she became administrator in 2014.  In June 2020, having already achieved numerous accomplishments, she broke another barrier for women in STEM. At age 68, Sullivan traveled to the deepest point in the ocean, a location so remote and dangerous that only seven other people have been there.  Business Insider reports that astronaut Kathy Sullivan joined millionaire adventurer Victor Vescovo in a submarine to explore Challenger Deep, the lowest point in the Mariana Trench. Located 200 miles from Guam and seven miles below the ocean's surface, she traveled to a point that is so deep it could fit Mount Everest inside, with a mile to spare. Just like her space travels, it was a risky but rewarding mission.   She leaves a lasting legacy for women in space and other scientific fields. Not only can you be the "first" to do something, but you can also be a whole person with diverse interests and skills that evolve with age. Sullivan proves that women can explore the depths of Earth and beyond. 

Astronaut Kathy Sullivan Reaches the Deepest Point in the Ocean

Arlene Camp Made History as the First Female Aviator Assigned to her Navy Squadron  Arlene Camp has never been afraid of an opportunity. She earned her Naval Flight Officer wings of gold just after a policy restricting women from serving in combat roles was lifted and became the first woman assigned to naval squadron VAQ-138 on Whidbey Island, Washington. At age 24, this wasn't the first time she was the first female in a group. In high school, Arlene was the first and only girl to opt out of home economics. Instead she chose shop class, where she excelled in carpentry and metal working. Her dad taught her the value of independence and that she could do anything she wanted to do at an early age. Her desire to blaze her own trail led to a career at Northrop Grumman where she has worked for nearly 19 years. Arlene is the vice president of operations for Maritime/Land Systems and Sensors in Baltimore where she leads a team of more than 1,100 employees. In a brief Q&A, Arlene shared more about her historic career. How did you become a naval aviator? When I was in college, I joined the ROTC program. After receiving my commission, my first assignment was as an Intelligence Officer in Iceland for a year and a half. I wasn't physically qualified to be a pilot and I had missed a letter on the eye chart of the physical exam. I asked some other officers stationed with me about what it was like to be a Naval Flight Officer. I decided to apply to the program and was chosen to go to flight school for my next assignment. The timing worked out perfectly. Literally, a month before I got my wings in June 1993, the combat exclusion policy was lifted, allowing women to serve in more roles in the military.  Did you feel empowered by putting on the same uniform as the men in the squadron?  The flight suit was actually very comfortable. It's like wearing your pajamas to work! But I've always been comfortable doing things outside of the norm. When I joined the Navy, I knew that I was a definite minority, but it didn't bother me. My friends and classmates were going through the same training I was, and we worked alongside each other and relied on each other to make it through. That created a bond that has lasted a lifetime. I remember when I was assigned to the VAQ-138 Yellowjackets after my training was complete — all of the guys looked at me with the proverbial question mark over their head. Like, "how are we going to act around her? Is she going to mess up what we have?" So I did what I had always done — put my head down, jump right in and work hard to learn my job. For example, I would offer to fly the night schedule that others didn't want to do, and I tried to earn my qualifications as quickly as possible. In a squadron you have to build credibility and prove that you are trustworthy because you depend on each other and lives are at stake. My goal was to earn the respect and trust of my squadron mates as soon as I could. How did your dad help inspire your career choice?  I learned about service from my dad. He enlisted in the Navy during World War II, and when he got out, he went to college on the GI Bill. He was also a private pilot, and I got to fly with him and my mother and sister when growing up. I also learned about electronic warfare from him, because of what he did later as an engineer. My dad worked for a subcontractor to Grumman on Long Island where I grew up. I'm really proud — and think it's pretty cool — that my dad was one of the original designers of the weapon system on the EA-6B, the plane that I flew in the Navy. What lessons have you learned in the Navy that have helped you build a successful career?  One lesson I learned was how to compartmentalize. It's a skill that's taught to aviators to help focus on the task at hand with the intent of increasing performance and safety. It means to leave the distractions that may cloud your thinking outside the cockpit (or workplace). Turn your mind from thoughts of anything other than the job at hand, and pick them up again when the job is done. Other ways to think about it is being "laser focused" or "fully present" in the moment. Like anything else, it takes practice. What advice would you give to women looking to climb the corporate ladder? Get out of your comfort zone and do something a little bit different. When I interviewed for my first vice president position, I didn't get it. The feedback I received was that I didn't have enough diversity of experience, which shocked me because I had all different types of programs, different customers, and different technology areas across two campuses. When I look back, my resume had lots of program management experience, but that was just scratching the surface of what is possible here at Northrop Grumman. It didn't represent the breadth of the company, and there was so much more I could learn and benefit from if I did something different. My advice would be to realize the value of stepping outside your comfort zone — and then do it.

Naval Aviator and Pioneer

The International Space Station (ISS) is rounding the track toward its 20th year in orbit. On Nov. 20, 1998, according to the station chronology at CASIS, the first section of the ISS was launched into orbit by Zarya, a Russian Proton booster rocket. A year later, the first American-built section was carried up aboard a shuttle. And on Nov. 2, 2000, the station's first crew — an American and two Russians — reported aboard.  The Miracle of Routine Operation Notably, when Space Safety magazine listed major mishaps in the history of spaceflight, none of them involved the ISS. However, to call the history of the ISS a history of routine operation is a misnomer because nothing about space travel is routine, or will be for a long time to come. More than anything else, the station is a training mission for the long-duration spaceflights of the future, to Mars and beyond. According to NASA, the One-Year Mission accomplished by astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko on the ISS was twice as long as most U.S. missions. Missions to Mars are approximately 30 months long, said NASA, so the One-Year Mission is shedding "new insights into how the human body adjusts to weightlessness, isolation, radiation and stress of long duration spaceflight." The ISS has shown us that we can indeed build spacecraft capable of safely carrying humans on such long-duration missions. The history of the ISS has also shown us that, as NASA observed, we can do this collaboratively, through cooperation that has persisted for nearly two decades, even through the ups and down of earthly international relations. This is an equally breathtaking piece of good news because outer space is simply too big for any one country to explore. If we are going to do it — and we will! — we will be doing it together.   Spaceship and City This quiet and amazing double achievement did not happen by itself. It involved solving a lot of technical challenges. First of all, the ISS is big. It is a true spaceship, larger and heavier than any airliner. And it continues to grow, with new modules still being added. "The space station is approximately the size of a football field ... it is about four times as large as the Russian space station Mir and five times as large as the U.S. Skylab," said CASIS. At the same time, the central role of cooperation and collaboration makes the ISS in some ways the prototype of something even more futuristic: a city in space. The sections and modules that make up the ISS are at once self-contained, like buildings in a city, yet tied together by shared infrastructure facilities, such as the station's power-generating solar wings. This semi-decentralized approach created a host of engineering complications involving features as basic as the docking collars that connect station modules — and which needed to conform to both American and Russian specifications. At the same time, the reward is greater flexibility and survivability due to having essentially two independent life-support systems, each of which is capable of supporting the entire crew in a pinch. Similar engineering complications — and advantages — are reproduced in the provision for attaching European, Japanese and other modules. Each has its own role, while also adding to the overall capability of the station. Again, the result is suggestive not so much of our traditional notion of a spaceship as of a city in space, its three-dimensional streets filled with multiple languages and an endless variety of activities. Part interplanetary training mission, part prototype space city — the final remarkable thing about the history of the ISS is that these roles have taken form as the station itself did, over nearly two decades of operating experience in space. And where does the ISS go next? That part is up to you.

20-Year Mission — History of the ISS

As a child, Nancy Grace Roman was curious about the world. Thanks to her father, who was a scientist and encouraged inquisitiveness, and her mother, who pointed out the wonders of the night sky, Roman became fascinated by the stars. She wanted to know what they were made of, what they were like and how they behaved. By age 11, she formed her own astronomy club; by age 12, she resolved to become an astronomer. Little did she know, she would become one of the most celebrated female pioneers of astronomy in America.  However, she had a long road yet to travel. It was the 1930s, and there would be barriers. For instance, in high school, she asked her guidance teacher for permission to take a second year of algebra instead of a fifth year of Latin. "She looked down her nose at me and sneered, 'What lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?'" Roman recalled in a 2018 Voice of America interview. "That was the general attitude of women going into science," said Roman.  Despite this mindset, which would follow her through graduate school and into her early career, Roman became NASA's first chief of astronomy and its first female executive. She was even nicknamed the "mother" of the Hubble Telescope because of her leadership in helping to plan and manage the project that lead to the famous space-based instrument. Roman blazed a remarkable trail for women scientists, bolstering America's space program and inspiring future female pioneers to pursue careers in STEM.   Undeterred  Nancy Grace Roman was born on May 16, 1925, in Nashville, Tennessee as the only child of Georgia Frances and Irwin Roman. Her father was a geophysicist who worked for an oil company and moved the family from Tennessee to Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey, Michigan and, finally, Nevada — all when Roman was still young. It was in Nevada, with it's clear, dark skies, that Roman fell in love with the stars. She organized her friends into an astronomy club and frequently carried around a small, thin pocketbook called "Seeing Stars," which had maps of the constellations. "I still have the book," she said in a 1980 oral history interview for NASA.  Her fascination with the stars and her natural ability to bring people together would shine later in life. But first, she had to get through school — during a time when women were discouraged from scientific pursuits. At Swarthmore College, her professor of astronomy, Dr. Peter van de Kamp, gave her the "first lukewarm encouragement" for choosing science. He told her, "I usually try to dissuade girls from majoring in physics, but I think maybe you might make it."  At the University of Chicago, she again found resistance while working on her PhD. Her thesis adviser, William Wilson Morgan, ignored her for six months. "He didn't want anything to do with me," Roman said in a 2018 video interview with NASA. She was also encouraged to accept a teaching position at another college before she completed her degree, but she persisted. Roman acquired her PhD and became the first female member of the department's staff.  It was during this time that Roman made an important discovery. She noticed that some stars containing elements heavier than hydrogen orbited the Milky Way's galactic plane in a circular path, whereas other stars that had spewed heavy elements into interstellar space (seeding new stars) had more eccentric orbits. Roman surmised that the heavier stars were younger than those with irregular orbits. "This was the first indication that common stars were not all the same age," she said in an interview with NASA, describing it as one of her favorite moments in her career. "I realized that I had discovered something important that no one had ever suspected," she said.  New Horizons  Despite gaining the respect of her peers and making important contributions to astronomy at the University of Chicago, Roman did not believe that she would be granted tenure as a full professor. She accepted a job with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, where she worked as a radio astronomer. In 1958, she caught wind of a new governmental organization being formed — the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Many prominent NRL scientists were being recruited to join, including one of Roman's colleagues, Jack Clark, who had been NRL's director of geophysics and astronomy. When he asked Roman if she knew anyone who might be interested in setting up a program in space astronomy at NASA, she took it as an invitation to apply. She got the job.  For the next 20 years, she served as NASA's Chief of Astronomy and Relativity Programs, initiating many programs around space observations. Among numerous missions that she helped organize, the Hubble Space Telescope stands the most well-known. She knew that engineers at NASA wanted to build a rocket-launched telescope and that astronomers wanted one, too, but that the groups couldn't agree on the specifications. So, she organized a meeting between them to hash it out. They did.  Over the years, she worked to convince the stakeholders, including NASA and Congress, that spending an estimated $400 million in taxpayer money was worth it. She estimated that "...for the price of one night at the movies, each American would receive 15 years of exciting discoveries."  "She made it possible to get early telescopes up [into space] to learn what needed to be learned," science historian Bob Zimmerman told Space.com back in 2009. "As soon as that technology started to mature, she was pushing for the design work. Her hard-nosed nature helped get the telescope built."  Over the course of her career, she won many awards, including the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award, the NASA Outstanding Scientific Leadership Award and the Women in Aerospace's Lifetime Achievement Award. Roman retired from NASA in 1979 at the age of 54, 11 years before the Hubble Space Telescope would launch. But for her early planning work and advocacy, she was nicknamed the "Mother of Hubble."  Looking Back  She continued to work, first as a consultant and then eventually as the director of the Astronomical Data Center. In 1997, she retired for good and began volunteering. Roman was drawn to educating children and spent several years with an organization called Journey to the Universe, which brought space-based educational programs to schools in the Washington D.C. area. In 2001, NASA established the Roman Technology Fellowship in Astrophysics, meant to give early career researchers the opportunity to develop leadership skills.  On her 90th birthday in 2015, Roman looked back on her long career in an interview with NASA and expressed happiness that women could finally land senior jobs in academia and business. "They're not being quite as discouraged as I was," she said. But there was still room for growth, she said, adding that more women needed to be in senior positions and salaries were still too low. She offered this advice to women looking to advance to higher levels of management: "Remain open to change and new opportunities."  Roman died in 2018 at the age of 93. She will always be remembered for her passion and advocacy for science. 

American Astronomer Nancy Grace Roman's Legacy for Female Pioneers

August 26 marked Women's Equality Day, which commemorates both the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote and the nationwide demonstration for women's rights in 1970, according to the National Women's History Project. While women represent nearly half of the workforce, they hold only 24 percent of STEM jobs, as reported by the US Economics & Statistics Administration. However, women in STEM fields are gaining momentum. Meet Kerry Nguyen, Chemist Kerry Nguyen, a chemist at Northrop Grumman, hopes to see more women in STEM fields in the future. When Nguyen was in the sixth grade, her mother was diagnosed with cancer, so she decided to study science to better understand how cancer was diagnosed, prevented and treated. "My parents kept the news from me initially because they believed I was too young to understand the issue at the time, and they were correct," Nguyen said. She had only taken basic environmental science classes in school, but she took her curiosity about her mom's cancer diagnosis into her own hands. Her interest in science grew from there. "I wanted to learn as much as I could possibly understand about my mom's situation so I was better able to help her when needed," Nguyen added. As a first-generation American, Nguyen said her parents are her biggest inspiration. They came to the United States from Vietnam with minimal resources to start, but they always made sure she and her sisters had everything they needed to thrive. Nguyen's biggest mentor is another woman in STEM — her oldest sister, the first member of her family to attend college and a chemist who is pursuing her Ph.D. in organic chemistry. "Mary is the oldest, which meant that she made mistakes that I learned from. I continue to look up to my sister for guidance for many things, including chemistry," she said. Turning Curiosity Into a Career When it came time for college, Nguyen was already familiar with the STEM programs offered at California State University, Long Beach, near her hometown. As a student, she applied to an internship at Northrop Grumman after hearing about the position through an email from her school's career center. She was familiar with the company but had no idea that they had a chemistry lab. She was offered a position and started in the summer of 2015. "I applied to my internship position to freshen up my resume and with the mindset that I have nothing to lose but time, and I do not regret my decision one bit. I love the work I do and the support I provide for NG," said Nguyen. Nguyen graduated in May 2017 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry, and she continues to work in Northrop Grumman's lab, now as a full-time chemist. As a technical scientist, her job varies daily, and she spends most of her time analyzing chemical samples for all programs across the company. She explained: "Chemists are like the CSI of aerospace. We can determine what a material is made of or how much of a certain component is in a given material. We can test many different chemical properties using analytical and instrumental techniques." Nguyen plans to continue her work at Northrop Grumman and will earn either a master's degree in a STEM field or an MBA sometime in the future, building her technical, leadership and management skills to eventually pursue a management position. Advice to Women in STEM Fields Nguyen suggested that young people focus on networking and meeting new people to expand their opportunities. Most importantly, she urges other women who are interested in STEM to seize any opportunities without hesitation. "Do not undermine what you are capable of doing for yourself, and do not make yourself worth less than what you really are," Nguyen said. In the spirit of Women's Equality Day, she added: "Be proud to be a young woman in the STEM fields because it is rare, but we need to make it a norm. If you are curious, put your foot in the door and test out the water. You will never know unless you try, and it is never too late to be curious."

Women in STEM Fields: Advice From the Lab

Key Takeaways The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) oversees U.S. civil aviation, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), a U.S. government agency, investigates civil transportation accidents. Safety systems for commercial airliners include ground proximity warning, collision avoidance and smart landing guidance. Future flights could be in autonomous vehicles driven by electric or hybrid engines.When you board a commercial aircraft, stow your carry-on luggage and buckle in, you generally assume that your jet will taxi and take off safely, keep you comfortable during the flight and deliver you to your destination.This comfort with commercial air travel is no accident. Since 1914, which Space.com marked as the beginning of scheduled airline passenger service, passenger safety has been central to commercial aircraft evolution.According to the Air Safety Network (ASN), 2017 was the safest year in commercial aviation history, with just 10 fatal airline accidents and 44 airline fatalities worldwide. The New York Times reported that the April 2018 death of a passenger aboard a Southwest Airlines jet marked the first passenger fatality on a U.S. commercial airliner in more than nine years. Bureau of Transportation Statistics reveals that during that time, more than 7 billion passengers took off and landed safely.Teamwork in InnovationSo what's behind this remarkable safety record? It begins with a singular focus on passenger safety by commercial airlines and organizations like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — the overseer of U.S. civil aviation — and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the U.S. government agency that investigates civil transportation accidents. It plays out as new aerospace technologies and processes that beef up safety in the design, operation and maintenance of commercial aircraft."When there is an accident, it's our responsibility to get to the bottom of it in an unbiased, fully transparent fashion," said John DeLisi, director of aviation safety for the NTSB. "Our main goal is to learn the lessons from every accident and make recommendations to prevent their recurrence."DeLisi points to improved avionics, a better understanding of fuel tank dynamics, more rigorous aircraft maintenance processes and enhancements to cabin safety as examples of lessons learned from aircraft accidents.Safety From the Ground UpNo commercial aircraft would fly today, for example, without something like Honeywell's ground proximity warning system, an aerospace technology that helps jets avoid unplanned Controlled Flights into Terrain. "This is a great example of a safety system that has helped eliminate a complete category of accidents," said DeLisi.According to Becky Sidelinger, vice president of safety systems, Honeywell Aerospace, traffic collision avoidance systems (TCAS), detailed by the National Business Aviation Association, have largely eliminated mid-air collisions between airliners. A TCAS "creates pilot awareness of all other nearby aircraft and sends directives to him on how to avoid any collisions," she explained. Increasingly a TCAS receives its positional data from GPS satellites, which enhances precision and passenger safety.Another example of aerospace technology making the skies safer, added Sidelinger, is Honeywell's smart landing systems, which notify pilots if they are flying too low, too fast or even in the wrong direction as they prepare to land. "These systems are designed to prevent aircraft from overshooting or undershooting a runway, as Asiana Airlines (Flight 214) did in July 2013 on final approach to San Francisco International Airport," she said.You Can't Win if You Don't Exit Passenger lives can also be at risk even if a jet never leaves the tarmac. A fire that erupts in the cabin prior to takeoff can be just as dangerous as a mid-air collision. That's why commercial aircraft evolution has included a variety of NTSB-recommended upgrades to cabin safety requirements."Getting survivors out of a cabin quickly is an important aspect of any emergency situation," explained DeLisi. "The biggest changes in cabin safety have come from the introduction and use of fire retardant materials on seats and internal structures such as overhead baggage compartments, walls, ceilings and cabin partitions," he added.Other examples of FAA-motivated safety features found in commercial cabins today include floor proximity emergency escape path lighting, lavatory smoke detectors and seats that protect passengers from injury when exposed to dynamic forces of up to 16Gs.Window Into the FutureSo how will future jetliners compare to the 787s and A380s ferrying us around the world today?DeLisi expects to see us flying in totally autonomous commercial aircraft in a cocoon of safety, precision and great fuel economy. The new jets might be powered by electric or hybrid engines, and include more modular seating and entertainment options, but don't look for larger windows or standing seats."The recent Southwest Airlines incident will (remind) us that a window is just a transparent piece of the fuselage designed to hold in the cabin pressure we need to breathe comfortably," DeLisi said. "It's not likely that manufacturers will be eager to sacrifice a significantly larger portion of that structure by installing large windows."And there's one more pesky, unavoidable aspect of commercial air travel: turbulence."As smart as we are about the weather, we still want to be able to go through it and not let it disrupt our travel plans," claimed DeLisi. "Standing up is no way to experience turbulence."Defining possible in the air, Northrop Grumman brings expertise and leadership to manned and autonomous flight, composites for vehice construction, and instrumentation for sensor and navigation prowess. Discover more.

Commercial Aircraft Evolution Puts Safety First

Sometimes, we look outward. Sometimes, inward. And sometimes, using an Earth observation satellite and a Vega rocket, we look downward, pinpoint a lost vehicle and rescue its passengers from 600 kilometers above the surface of the Earth.      Thanks to Plé©iades Neo, a constellation of satellites that can image the planet in high resolution, and the Vega rockets they rode there, our views from above are about to get a whole lot better. As a result, everything for which we need real-time information to better understand how our world is changing — including global security, human safety, environmental monitoring, urban planning, climate data collection, weather tracking, search and rescue and so much more — will get a major boost.             Ridesharing to Space            Upping our tracking technology game to this level of detail was no small feat. It required new spacecraft, upgraded image acquisition and processing systems, and a specialized launch vehicle, the Vega rocket, to all come together.            The Vega series of launch vehicles has been hard at work for almost a decade. When Arianespace, an international company headquartered in Evry, France, began launching the ESA-funded Vega rockets out of French Guiana in 2011 and 2012, it was something of a breakthrough.      The location itself wasn't new; launching from French Guiana has been happening since the 1970s. At only five degrees north of the equator, each rocket launching from French Guiana gets a 460 kph boost from being close to the equator. To boot, French Guiana doesn't experience earthquakes, rarely has cyclones or hurricanes and is mostly covered in forest, making it a safe spot for rockets, a spaceport and people who need to keep clear of both. What was different was the rocket itself. It was a vision of the future of space exploration that built it.            Traditional, high-cost, heavy-duty, heavy-lift rockets — such as the Soyez, which also launches from French Guiana — can simultaneously blast 34 satellites into orbit. By contrast, Vega was designed to be a light-lift, low-cost system with two main purposes. The first was to inexpensively insert a single 1,000 kg satellite into orbit, and the second was to create a path to space ridesharing.      Using specialized internal structures (rather than carry one Vega 1,000 kg satellite into orbit), Vega can store one larger and four smaller satellites that weigh a combined 1,000 kg. This is exactly what occurred with Plé©iades Neo 4. The August 2021 Vega rocket launch — the seventh in 2021 for Arianespace — was carrying five satellites that weighed just over 1,000 kg in total.      Contrast that with one of the most well-known satellites in the world, the Hubble Spaceflight Telescope (HST). The HST weighs an order of magnitude more (11,000 kg) than Plé©iades Neo 4 and many GPS satellites, which typically weigh between 1,800 and 2,200 kg each. As satellites are getting smaller and their launches more frequent, the rockets that lift them into orbit are evolving. HST was taken into orbit on a space shuttle. Today, when the payloads are small enough, a single Vega can deploy dozens of satellites. In 2020, one Vega rocket put almost 50 satellites into a sun-synchronous orbit: 40-plus small CubeSats and seven microsatellites.            Satellite ridesharing leads to launch cost-sharing. Since the first Vega launched from French Guiana in 2012, lower surface-to-orbit costs have allowed Earth observation satellites to be launched from numerous single organizations, as well as countries outside of ESA, Russia and the U.S. In 2013, the VNREDSat-1A representing the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology launched on a Vega. In 2014, the Republic of Kazakhstan followed suit.      The four CubeSats that joined the Plé©iades Neo 4 on its launch — the nineteenth mission for the Vega series — were taking advantage of the European space agency's L3 Initiative: a light satellite, low-cost launch opportunity to hitch a ride into space at a fraction of the cost of most one-way trips into orbit. There's a catch to this particular one-way trip, however: a satellite hitching a ride with Plé©iades Neo is destined to travel not east to west but rather north to south.            Off-Axis Polar Express            If you want to image a feature on Earth as it changes day by day or even hour by hour, your orbit of choice is clear: a polar orbit and, more specifically, a sun-synchronous orbit. Satellites in sun-synchronous orbits (SSOs) move in a near-circle from north to south, revolving around the planet every 100 minutes. As they sweep through their orbits, the planet rotates below. This allows a single satellite in SSO to make a map of the sample place on the surface of the Earth at more or less the same local time every day.            SSOs are nearly circular in part because the Earth itself is not a perfect sphere. Making a perfect map of a less than perfectly round planet requires some extra planning. To avoid being thrown off by the bulge around Earth's equator, Plé©iades Neo 4's inclination relative to Earth's true north-south is a bit off-axis by about eight degrees.      Plé©iades Neo 4 is joined in this slightly off-axis orbit by Plé©iades Neo 3, which launched in April 2021. Though they are part of the same satellite constellation, the two satellites are set 180 degrees apart in their sweeps. Because they are half a world apart, when working together, Plé©iades Neo 3 and 4 can map out every site of interest twice a day.            With this constellation in sun-synchronous orbit, up to two million square kilometers can be mapped every 24 hours. At that rate, the entire Earth can be mapped at ultra-high-resolution up to five times a year in different colors and multiple spectra, including the near-infrared and panchromatic.            Mapping the entire Earth in any color is an enormous gain in the amount of information we have about the surface of the planet we live on. Though we've been photographing the Earth from space since 1947, much of the planet still remains imaged in fairly low resolution. In part, this is because "high resolution" is a moving target. What was high-resolution in the 1980s was something in the area of 60 meters per pixel. Current standards for high-resolution imaging have each pixel representing 30 by 30 centimeters.      Another reason our whole-planet mapping technology lags behind is that giants of mapping, such as Google, have focused their efforts on where potential customers live, work and consume goods. Going into 2020, Google announced that it had mapped 10 million miles (or 16 million kilometers) of street view imaging but only 36 million mi (58 million km) of the planet — about 11% of the Earth's surface. That's not a dynamic map, either — that's one and done, a picture of whatever was happening when the airplane, weather balloon or satellite flew over that area.            Find It First and Find It Fast            This generation of Earth observation satellites has a different approach in mind. Once the complete constellation of four Plé©iades Neo satellites has rocketed from French Guiana into sun-synchronous orbit, geotracking weather patterns, ships at sea, downed aircraft, human convoys and even migrating animals should be possible in near-real time.      Among the four satellites in SSO, within 30-40 minutes of a tracking request, the event or object of interest should be findable by a Plé©iades Neo satellite. The other three satellites will then sweep out that area when it passes below them. Within a day, the images of landmines, crews sent to clear debris from roads, flooding rivers and families seeking shelter on their roofs during the flooding will be available down to the scale of a soccer ball.            Such on-demand, high-resolution imaging of our home planet has been hovering just below the surface of commercial availability for some time. Now that it's broken through, we'll begin to see what's possible when people who've been looking over the shoulders of mapping giants like Google start commissioning their own planetary imaging down to a minute scale.      But we know one thing is for sure: We have never seen the world like this before.                      

Looking Better Than Ever: Vega Rockets and Earth Observation Satellites

Unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, have become a ubiquitous part of our lives. Smart, microprocessor- and software-driven flying machines now regularly perform military missions tagged as "dull, dirty or dangerous," while local government agencies and private entrepreneurs enlist drones for missions such as aerial surveillance of fires, wedding photography and small-package deliveries. Against this backdrop, however, human test pilots — those daring young men and women in their flying machines of movie legend — remain a central and indispensable part of aircraft design, and the teams and processes that develop, test and field new aircraft systems, both manned and unmanned. "Developmental test pilots serve as the 'bridge' between engineers (who design the plane) and operational pilots (who fly the plane)," explains Bob Hood, a retired U.S. Air Force test pilot and one of 15 active test pilots employed today by Northrop Grumman. "The test pilot must be able to speak 'engineering' to help aircraft developers produce a plane with good flying qualities that can meet its mission requirements. He must also help developers produce a flying experience for pilots that is engaging, intuitive and easy to understand." Start With STEM Many test pilots begin their careers as military pilots with a degree in engineering or another technical degree such as physics or mathematics. "To enter test pilot school, you also have to have substantial flying experience — a minimum of 750 flight hours — in military aircraft," explains Troy Johnson, a retired Air Force test pilot and Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems' chief test pilot. The U.S. Navy and the Air Force both operate their own test pilot schools; commercial test pilot schools are also available in the U.S. and abroad. Join the Dream Team Ironically, explains Don Weiss, a retired U.S. Marine Corps test pilot and Northrop Grumman's chief B-2 stealth bomber test pilot, "a majority of the contributions of a test pilot are not made while seated in an aircraft." The role of a test pilot actually begins, he explains, "in the 'dreaming' stage of aircraft design as part of a team considering all aspects of aircraft operation and performance." The test pilot contributes to everything from aircraft design criteria; vendor selection for specific subsystems; and the layout of cockpit controls and displays; to helping develop simulators, flight test plans and training programs — and the earlier in the program, the better. "The single most important job of a test pilot," advises Wayne Staley, a retired Northrop Grumman test pilot who began his test pilot career in the Air Force, "is to collect the data that the aircraft's designers need to evaluate the operation and performance of the aircraft." Bring the Right Stuff The most important characteristic of a test pilot? "Integrity," says Weiss. "Both engineers and pilots have to trust, intimately, the real-time findings of the test pilot. If there is an issue with the plane, the test pilot has to be very transparent so that the situation is well understood by designers and operators alike." Good test pilots need to be disciplined, curious, and cool under fire. According to Hood, however, "fear is not part of a test pilot's vocabulary." If something unusual happens during a flight, he says, "You have to operate in the present. It doesn't matter how you got there, only how you're going to fix it." And this advice has paid off. In October, both Hood and Staley were recognized by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP) for their career-long ability to meet challenging flight test requirements. Both men were honored as members of SETP's 2017 Class of Fellows at the organization's annual meeting, in Anaheim, Calif. Evolve With Technology As aircraft design technology has evolved, so too has the role of the test pilot. "In the 1950s, pilots took planes out to see what they would do. Today we take aircraft out to verify the predictions of our models," says Staley. In an age of sophisticated wind tunnel testing, modeling and simulation tools, he adds, "we don't get into the cockpit until our predicted performance is good." But a new aircraft system doesn't need a cockpit to benefit from the skills of a test pilot. "Increasingly, high speed computers do most of the 'thinking' and management of flight control surfaces for autonomous systems," says Weiss. "But you still need someone who can evaluate the air vehicle's flying qualities, because humans are involved in operating it from the ground." FAA rules require operators of certain classes of unmanned systems to be flight qualified as pilots, and instrument rated. Test pilots work closely with designers of ground control stations, therefore, to ensure that aircraft controls, displays, and methods of presenting information are consistent with how our pilots are trained. Test pilots also help autonomous system designers ensure that an aircraft's avionics and flight control systems can respond appropriately to human air traffic control commands to the air vehicle operator. "The goal is to design autonomous systems so that they are fail-safe and foolproof, but every once in a while, these systems fail and you end up losing an aircraft," observes Johnson. "By including test pilots' expertise in the development of an aircraft, there's a much better chance that a pilot can bring it home safely." Manage the Risks In the end, being a test pilot centers on risk management, whether you're testing a manned or an autonomous system. "The test pilot and the test team spend a lot of time discussing and mitigating risks before a plane ever takes off," explains Staley. "These discussions involve the people who understand best how the aircraft works. Our shared goal is to identify possible problems and minimize our exposure to those problems. That way we'll always have a safe escape route if unexpected situations arise." Enjoy the Ride For all the discipline, teamwork, and mission planning, however, test pilots still go to work to do what they love most — fly high performance aircraft. "One of my most memorable experience was testing the weapons delivery capabilities of a military jet over the ocean," recalls Weiss. "On test day, there was a marine layer of clouds. We needed to have clear conditions to complete the test properly. We spotted a hole in the clouds that was just large enough to drop in, release the weapons, document it and get out. That was fun, and it felt good to accomplish the test under challenging conditions. Most importantly, we got the data. I call that a pretty good day at the office."

Aircraft Design in the Age of Autonomous Systems: Test Pilots Still Play Essential Role

 Enable targeting cookies to view this content.   Northrop Grumman engineers Josh Saunders and Mark Sakaguchi are programming a self-thinking quadcopter using cognitive automation, which will allow the vehicle to fly intelligently and respond quickly in emergencies and for disaster relief. This is just the beginning — unmanned aerial vehicle technology is evolving rapidly, and the possibilities are endless. The Future of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles As explained by Expert System, cognitive automation is neither machine learning nor pure artificial intelligence. It uses algorithms like natural language processing and data mining to bring ordered action in response to unstructured data. For example, the University of Pennsylvania developed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that fly through narrow spaces without guidance from a human pilot. According to Quartz, the tiny quadcopters use sensors that monitor their surroundings then adjust to squeeze through windows. Described by Harvard Business Review as the "internet of flying things," UAVs can capture high-resolution aerial images of construction sites, which are often missed by street observation and satellites. These images help architects check construction sites for deviations from the computer-aided design file. Other intelligent UAVs tackle routine but dangerous inspections so human don't have to undergo the risk, according to IBM. Inspection drones connected with IBM Watson IoT can autonomously plot flight paths between cell towers or wind turbines to look at a loose wire or corrosion and log the damage. Deloitte, in collaboration with Energia and IBM Maximo, flies robotic inspectors around wind farm turbines, enabling closer inspection without climbing ladders. Space exploration can also benefit from cognitive autonomy. Pushing the Limits Saunders and Sakaguchi see cognitive automation playing a role in disaster relief as well. Their quadcopter could map victim location and status before rescuers enter a burning building. "It's really interesting to get a machine to think for itself and to do what you want it to do," said Saunders. "It pushes my limits but also I get to have a lot of fun, too." Interested in pushing your limits (and having fun)? Check out the Northrop Grumman Careers page to find your next big opportunity.

Cognitive Automation: Drones for Disaster Relief

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation's 2019-2023 National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, approximately 5,090 airports in the U.S. are capable of providing commercial airline service, but only 506 of them actually do so. The reason is simple: major airlines make money by moving large numbers of passengers in a single plane over a long distance. Higher fuel burn rates, higher maintenance costs, lower passenger volume plus landing fees and crew costs make it difficult for air carriers to operate 150- to 200-passenger jets profitably between regional airports. Smaller (six- to 19-passenger) electric airplanes, however, could potentially rewrite this airline calculus and revitalize regional air travel for consumers and air carriers alike. Lower Costs, Higher Comfort "We expect savings of 25 to 30 percent in fuel cost with hybrid-electric airplanes, and perhaps 65 to 80 percent savings with fully electric models," said Stan Little, chairman and CEO of Southern Airways Express, a regional air carrier that primarily operates nine-passenger Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft. "Electric motors will undoubtedly produce significant savings in maintenance costs, but it's too early to know how much." Little hopes to be flying hybrid-electric caravans on Southern Airways' routes within the next three to four years, and possibly fully electric models in the five-year plus time frame, he added. Hybrid-electric airplanes typically use an internal combustion engine operating in parallel with a battery-powered electric motor for propulsion. Fully electric models run exclusively on battery power. Operational costs aside, Little is confident that electric airplanes will offer consumers a transformative flying experience. "The number one benefit of electric aircraft for consumers will be the quietness of the cabin," he said. "They will also get the satisfaction of knowing that the carbon footprint they're leaving behind is extremely low." Southern Airways Express subsidiary Mokulele Airlines is currently working with Los Angeles aviation startup Ampaire to flight test a six-seat Cessna 337 Skymaster retrofitted with the Ampaire's parallel hybrid-electric propulsion system. Mokulele and Ampaire plan to flight test the aircraft in 2020 by tracing a 15-minute commercial flight route between Kahului Airport and Hana Airport on the island of Maui. Short Hop to the Future Greg McDougall, founder and CEO of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Harbour Air Seaplanes, is also bullish on the ability of electric airplanes to bolster regional air travel in British Columbia. Over the last year, his company has been working closely with Redmond, Washington-based magniX, an electric motor producer, to retrofit and obtain FAA certification for a six-passenger DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver seaplane with an all-electric propulsion system. The two companies conducted the first all-electric flight of the aircraft in December 2019. McDougall hopes to eventually electrify Harbour Air's entire fleet of seaplanes with magniX's electric propulsion technology. As McDougall sees it, these retrofitted electric seaplanes, with their expected range of 100 to 150 miles, would be a great fit for both the current and future needs of his airline. "Anywhere there's water in a metropolitan area in British Columbia, we're flying into it with multiple scheduled services per day," he said. "Our most popular route, for example, between (British Columbia capital) Victoria and downtown Vancouver is just 35 minutes. It's also one of our longest routes." Electric airplanes also have the potential to enhance the basic operating model of Harbour Air, offered McDougall. "Electric motors will be much cheaper to maintain, and it will be many times cheaper to charge a seaplane's batteries than to put fuel in it." These cost savings, he added, will help reduce Harbour Air's overhead, which will likely make seaplane travel more accessible and more affordable for more people. Reality Check The long pole in the electric aviation tent, McDougall admitted, remains aircraft certification. He expects the FAA certification process of the Harbour Air/magniX de Havilland Beaver to take in the "neighborhood of two years." Less urgent but still critical to meeting the weight, payload and performance challenges of electric aircraft is battery energy density, i.e. energy per unit volume. Lithium-ion batteries, currently the most mature battery technology for aviation, still have only about 1/70 the energy density of jet fuel. The more energy each battery can store, the fewer batteries an aircraft will need to carry to reach its desired operating range. Fewer batteries also mean lower aircraft weight, which will allow it to carry more freight or passengers instead. McDougall is cautiously optimistic that advances in lithium-ion battery technology or possibly hydrogen cell technology could close that gap significantly in the coming years. Clean-Sheet Designs Not all regional air carriers are convinced that retrofitting conventional aircraft with electric or hybrid-electric propulsion systems is time and money well-spent. Hyannis, Massachusetts-based Cape Air, whose service areas include New England, the Midwest and the Caribbean, is working closely with Israeli aircraft company Eviation, the developer of a new all-electric, nine-passenger commuter aircraft called Alice. "So much of the design and engineering of new all-electric aircraft centers on the power plant and energy source, that I'm not convinced that retrofitting conventional planes is going to work from a commercial standpoint," said Cape Air's CEO Dan Wolf. "I think we're actually going to see 'clean sheet' designs become the mainstay of the decarbonized fleet in a number of years." Cape Air has been operating a fleet of nine-passenger Cessna 402s since Wolf founded the airline in 1989. In October 2019, Cape Air began transitioning its fleet to the nine-passenger Tecnam P2012 Traveller. Wolf expects the airline to transition eventually to a fleet of fully electric aircraft, including, presumably, Alice. "We believe that it will be possible, within our lifetimes, to significantly reduce or eliminate carbon from the short-haul transportation business," he said. Building Infrastructure No matter which type of electric aircraft ends up on the flight line, regional air carriers will need pilots who can fly their planes, and electric charging infrastructure at every airport (or harbor) where they land. Much of the pilot training will either be provided by aircraft developers as part of purchase agreements with carriers, or new pilots will seek out their own certification on aircraft such as Bye Aerospace's eFlyer 2 all-electric training aircraft. How the charging infrastructure plays out and how it's paid for is less clear. Typically, airports are powered from a central grid and users pay for the power, in effect, through landing fees and hangar rent. Another option for funding this infrastructure could be public-private partnerships between aircraft developers, federal agencies and municipal airports. Since time (on the ground) is money, however, new aircraft charging infrastructure will likely center on fast-charging technology. "We're currently looking at one minute of charging time for every minute of flight time," said Southern Airways Little. That equation could still be a challenge for his airline, whose average time between flights is just 25 minutes, he admits. "Electric charging could actually slow down our operation, or require additional aircraft, which eats away at the cost savings that come with going to an all-electric fleet." Charter Flying Reimagined Electric airplanes also have the potential to dramatically reshape the world of charter flying, suggests Little. "We're going to start out by electrifying nine-seat Caravans as part of our regularly scheduled service," he said. "People are then going to become comfortable flying on electric planes because they're going to see Southern Airways conducting 60,000 electric flights a year that are all safe and all reliable. This will become an accepted part of human existence in America." The ubiquity of commuter electric air travel and its anticipated lower cost structure, added Little, could also lead to the electrification of smaller, four-seat aircraft that will be able to land on a regular basis at general aviation airports (i.e,. those not currently served by commercial airlines). "You may even be able to call up an app on your phone and charter a four-seat electric aircraft the same way that you call an Uber today," he continued. "I think this charter service will become available to the average American family, a giant leap from the two percent of families that can afford that service today." Scaling Up, Flying Forward However it plays out, electric aviation promises to become more common, more accessible and a source of new opportunities for air travelers, regional air carriers, electric airplane producers and suppliers of critical airport infrastructure alike. If it is to be successful, however, advised Cape Air's Wolf, it must be scalable. "As one of the largest commuter airlines in the country flying small airplanes the shortest distances, Cape Air has the opportunity to be a leader in helping launch a clean, carbon-free regional air transportation sector," he said. "But our fleet of 95 airplanes can't be the beginning and end of that story. I hope that our work will be the introduction to decarbonizing air transportation completely over time. The transition we have planned over the next few years will make the whole flying experience more satisfying for travelers and much healthier for the planet." If you're ready to put your career on a runway to a greener, healthier future, check out the latest job opportunities at www.ngc.com/careers.

Electric Airplanes Offer Clean New Runway for Regional Air Carriers

Stephen Hawking would have turned 77 this month. The theoretical physicist continued studying the possible connections between the preservation of matter and the destructive nature of black holes until only days before his death in March 2018. Prior to Hawking's landmark work on black hole theory and quantum physics, physicists and mathematicians mostly accepted — or failed to challenge — Albert Einstein's law of general relativity as scientific gospel. Einstein famously described black holes as killers of energy: nothing escaped these gravitational fields, not even matter or light. But throughout his life, Hawking just as famously flipped some of Einstein's suppositions. He first drew universal acclaim — on Earth, that is — in 1974 by showing how radiation can, in fact, flee the forces of a black hole. Lou Gehrig's disease did little to slow Hawking's own energy for studying the subject. In October, he posthumously had one last word: anything that's fatally absorbed by a black hole actually leaves a record of existence, a "soft hair" of information. Refuting Popular Theory Until He Didn't "Black Hole Entropy and Soft Hair" was the last in a trilogy of papers written by Hawking and colleagues from Cambridge and Harvard universities. They focused on what is known as the "information paradox." Their work circled back to Hawking's landmark 1974 paper, which claimed black holes had a temperature that allowed some quantum particles to leak. However, this theory posed a dire consequence for the history of any object consumed by a black hole. Essentially, the leaking would cause a black hole to evaporate and look like any other black hole that met the same fate. Writ large, Hawking's idea meant if a black hole consumed our planet, there would probably be no record anywhere of Earth. The theory ran up against quantum physics, which posits that all information can be recovered if lost, creating the information paradox. Hawking was a revolutionary about black holes until he wasn't. He recanted his 1974 research 30 years later. Information is indeed retrievable from a black hole, he claimed in 2004. His announcement meant order in modern physics was restored. Among the most recent work to support that, as Live Science reported, was a 2015 Cambridge University study that said quantum teleportation of subatomic particles could be used to retrieve information from a black hole — albeit a small amount and possibly enough that would hurt the chances of retrieving more information. Building on Stephen Hawking's Legacy Hawking's changed stance on black hole theory didn't stop him from further studying how information could be recovered from the abyss. As Cambridge University theoretical physics professor Malcom Perry, a co-author of Hawking's last paper, told The Guardian, "The difficulty is that if you throw something into a black hole it looks like it disappears. How could the information in that object ever be recovered if the black hole then disappears itself?" Hawking's last paper takes a step toward answering the question. Essentially, Hawking and his colleagues posit that a black hole's entropy might be recorded by a sheen of photons that surround the point at which light can't escape the gravitational pull of the hole. Hawking's team calls the sheen of photons "soft hair." "What this paper does is show that 'soft hair' can account for the entropy," Perry said. "It's telling you that soft hair really is doing the right stuff." What the paper doesn't do is account for everything that enters a black hole, so the information paradox remains. Although Hawking shed his countercultural status by recanting his 1974 theory on information, he was still a guiding light in his field because, among many achievements, he introduced the idea that black holes have a temperature. Stephen Hawking's legacy means his predecessors will keep trying to solve the information paradox with a big head start. "We don't know that Hawking entropy accounts for everything you could possibly throw at a black hole, so this is really a step along the way," Perry told The Guardian. "We think it's a pretty good step, but there is a lot more work to be done."

Stephen Hawking Had One Last Thing To Say About Black Hole Theory

Multicolored explosions of glittering stars delight and thrill people across America every Fourth of July. While dazzled by the display, some may be wondering "what are fireworks?" as the smoke clears from the sky. The science of fireworks can be traced back 1,000 years — from earlier primitive methods to modern technology transforming the explosions into more complex patterns using different types of metals, fuses and chemical reactions. What Are Fireworks? If you guessed that fireworks work in a process similar to a bullet being fired, you're mostly correct. That's how Chinese alchemists created the first fireworks when they put bamboo stalks filled with gunpowder into a fire pit. Often, the fireworks were used to ward off evil spirits at celebrations, according to Time.  Fireworks took on a different meaning when they were introduced to Europe in the 13th century, quickly becoming a staple for major celebrations, Time explained. Pyrotechnicians, looking to wow the crowds, discovered ways to add colors, and soon large fireworks displays were used to mark major events or military victories. Today, instead of bamboo stalks, we use explosive aerial shells combined with special oxidizing chemicals that help propel the shell into the sky. Fireworks are sent airborne through packaging and chain reactions. A mortar houses the firework, and a separate lifting charge sends the firework skyward. Inside the mortar is a shell containing "stars" — which produce the colors and points of light — as well as gunpowder and timed charges to create patterns. A firework with a smiley face pattern is created by stars carefully placed within a shell to create that recognizable expression in the sky, according to Popular Science. Where Do the Bright Colors Come From? The bright colors you see flash across the night sky are produced through different metal salt combinations. Strontium salts produce red fireworks, calcium salts create orange fireworks, sodium salts produce yellow fireworks and copper chloride yields blue fireworks. Different compounds create different shades of color to add variety, and metal salt combinations produce different colors, similar to how mixing primary colors (say, red and yellow) produces a secondary color (orange). Purple fireworks, for example, are created through a mixture of copper and strontium. To add some flair to the spectacle, aluminum powder creates the bright white flashes seen in sparkler-type fireworks, as noted by Popular Science. Who knew the science of fireworks was so complicated? In the Air ... and in Space? Considering the dazzling display, surely fireworks could be seen in space? After all, man-made objects like the Great Pyramids of Giza, dams and bridges can be seen by astronauts aboard the International Space Station. As it turns out, fireworks can be seen from space, although they only appear as tiny specks of light. National Geographic reported that NASA astronaut Scott Kelly said that he in fact saw fireworks during his time in space. However, if astronauts wanted to have their own fireworks display, it would be feasible, although there would be no thunderous boom associated with the explosion in the vacuum of space.

The Science of Fireworks: How the Fourth of July Spectacle Becomes a Reality

Even as most of modern communication on Earth is moving toward 5G and broadband internet, space communications remain stuck in the 1990s. Satellites, probes and crafts, such as the International Space Station, rely on radio waves. And though radio waves share the electromagnetic spectrum with the same frequencies that make up 5G, they have limited capacity and diffuse over large distances. There is limited radio spectrum, and the signals can be received by unwanted listeners. Radio is also slow. It takes about 2.5 seconds to send data to the Moon and back to Earth, several minutes from Mars and likely hours from the outer solar system, as Space Flight Insider notes. If humans are to usher in a new era of exploration to the Moon and Mars, beefing up space communication technology on satellites and spacecraft will be essential. Lasers are the solution. These beams of invisible infrared light are more robust than radio waves and maintain signal strength over vast distances. The wavelengths are also 10,000 times shorter than radio waves, which means laser pulses can pump out more information per second. That could make data transfer rates 10 to 100 times faster, as FiveThirtyEight reports. A handful of national agencies, including NASA, the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency (ESA), are all embarking on projects to put laser communication systems into orbit. The technology will improve data-transfer rates and lay the foundation for future missions to the Moon and beyond. Mona Lisa on the Moon Ever since the first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, was launched into space 61 years ago, radio waves have been the go-to means of communication. But in 2013, NASA scientist Xiaoli Sun and his team used a laser to beam a digital image into space. They sent Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting, Mona Lisa, to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which circles the Moon. To do it, they first divided the image into a grid that was 152 pixels side by 200 pixels tall. Each pixel was converted into a shade of gray that was represented by a number between zero and 4,095. One by one, the pixels were transmitted to the LRO with a laser pulse sent in one of 4,096 possible time slots. An instrument on the orbiter pieced together the image based on the arrival times of the laser pulses from Earth. Although the data rate was only 300 bits, or 0.0003 megabits, per second, the experiment set the stage for the agency's Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), which will use lasers to beam data to and from a satellite. Technologies currently in development will be tested on two upcoming NASA missions. The first is called ILLUMA-T, which stands for the Integrated LCRD Low-Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal. Scheduled for 2021, ILLUMA-T will be a fully operational end-to-end laser communications system that will be tested onboard the International Space Station. Another mission, called Optical to Orion (O2O), will use an optical modem to send high-definition video from NASA's first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft, scheduled for 2023, as Space Flight Insider reports. In tandem, NASA scientists will also be developing a suite of laser-based instruments called the Deep Space Optical Communications package. These instruments are planned for the upcoming Psyche mission, a low-cost probe that will launch by 2023 and travel to the asteroid known as 16 Psyche, found between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft will analyze the rock body using an onboard imager, magnetometer and gamma-ray spectrometer, and it will transmit the data back to Earth using a laser-based communication system. In a NASA press statement, Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the principal investigator for the Psyche mission, said "the technology is mind-blowing and it brings out all my inner geek. Who doesn't want to communicate using lasers, and multiply the amount of data we can send back and forth?" Space Data Highway Although NASA was the first to beam a digital image into space, the ESA was the first to establish an optical link in space. In 2001, the satellite Artemis used a laser signal to connect with the Earth observation craft, SPOT 4. The agency soon began setting two-way distance records for laser communication and, by 2008, had transmitted image data 28,000 miles between two satellites at a speed of 600 megabits per second, according to the ESA. These early milestones paved the way for the European Data Relay System (EDRS), a laser communication infrastructure designed to deliver high bandwidth capability for Earth observation satellites as well as other spacecraft, such as the International Space Station. Dubbed the "Space Data Highway," this infrastructure is the world's first optical network in the sky based on laser technology. It's made of two geostationary spacecrafts — with a third on the way — that orbit Earth at an altitude of about 22,000 miles. Their orbits match the orbit of the Earth, so they're always fixed over the same location down below. That location has a network of ground stations that can transmit data at a rate of 1.8 Gbit/s — about three times faster than a radio connection, according to Wired. The high-speed, high-capacity links are designed to serve spacecraft. Satellites that monitor Earth, for instance, orbit the planet lower than those in geostationary orbit and are never over the same location for very long. They typically relay the data they've collected when they're in a direct line of sight with a ground antenna, which occurs about once every 100 minutes. "That can be a problem when you need information immediately, for example, when trying to provide aid during flooding or wild fires, or help ships navigating through ice sheets," Michael Witting, EDRS project manager said in an ESA press briefing. If these crafts transmit their data to the EDRS, the information can be sent immediately to researchers on Earth. Since the ESA's relay system entered service in 2016, it has achieved more than 20,000 laser connections and downloaded more than 1 petabyte of data. The EDRS will soon start transmitting data from the International Space Station, and it's available to be used by crewed missions to the Moon and beyond. Tune in Tokyo Compact discs seem as old school today as land lines and CRT televisions. But the laser technology inside hasn't died. It's going to space. Sony, which released the world's first CD player in 1982, has partnered with JAXA to establish a long-distance laser communication system in space. The system will eventually support real-time communication between satellites, as well as between them and ground stations. JAXA's and Sony's interest lies in supporting future constellations of satellites that will beam broadband internet from Earth's orbit to the ground. Unimpeded by terrestrial obstacles, such as mountains or oceans, these orbiting spacecraft will be able to send internet everywhere. "Specifically, it can be used as a means of communication between the Earth and the International Space Station, the Moon, and Mars. There is a wide range of potential applications, such as communication with the Moon rovers," Koichi Wakata, a JAXA vice president, said in a press statement. As a first step toward creating the system, the partners sent a microwave-sized package in September 2019 to the International Space Station. Called SOLISS, for Small Optical Link for International Space Station, the device not only has optical communication capabilities but a 360-degree spherical camera to observe the laser tests, too. Any photos taken can be sent to the ground using SOLISS's laser communication. JAXA and Sony should be releasing news of their demonstration in early 2020. Putting lasers into orbit will increase the amount and speed of data that can be sent between satellites, as well as between them and the Earth. Although the technology is just beginning to emerge as a potential rival to radio waves, it could be years before it's making its mark. But traveling vast distances along trajectories as straight as an arrow, lasers could one day deliver high-definition video from the Moon, Mars and planets as far away as Jupiter and Saturn. 

Future Satellites and Spaceships Will Communicate with Lasers

The destruction caused by a natural disaster launches emergency services and rescue teams into action, and usually triggers waves of donations and support from those far away. Inevitably, though, focus turns elsewhere, and the rebuilding often receives limited widespread attention. It's only inevitable that another fire, flood or hurricane will strike and that resources and public attentiveness will follow. However, it's imperative to not lose sight of successes and failures of the after-disaster period because there are long-term lessons to learn from disasters. If anything, studying how governments, communities and organizations respond to disasters sets the table for more effective preparedness, resilient infrastructure and less money spent on disaster relief. In just six months during 2018, the U.S. government spent $140 billion in disaster assistance, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. According to the World Economic Forum's 2020 report on global risks, cumulative findings by federal agencies suggests that in the U.S. alone, climate-related economic damage could reach 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of the century. "We are a country that feels really good about helping out. After these disasters we have the Red Cross and other organizations providing assistance and raising money to help after the crisis," said Olivia Aguilar, an associate professor of environmental studies at Mount Holyoke College and director of the college's Miller Worley Center for the Environment. "It doesn't translate, though. Recovery costs are in the billions. If we demanded policies that were proactive, it would cost us less. We wouldn't be doing all of these out-of-pocket recoveries." In other words, studying the past can inform future actions. Learning About Disaster Relief More than 18,500 people died and more than 2,600 went missing after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The two events destroyed 130,000 homes and severely damaged another 270,000. "Learning from Megadisasters — Lessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake," an exhaustive study commissioned by the World Bank, reviewed the structural and non-structural measures that were in place prior to Tohoku. But it also reviewed the many forms of disaster response — including the field work of emergency and medical teams and the logistic supply chain for emergency supplies — as well as how the country could move forward to rebuild home and lost careers. An unthinkable triple-blow of earthquake, tsunami and accident at Fukushima Nuclear Power Station gave the Japanese government and outside experts such as the World Bank a lot to consider. Perhaps one of the most chilling findings was how delayed warnings might have affected how many residents fled the path of the tsunami. With about 602,000 people in those at-risk areas, 20,000 were killed or went missing. "The Japan Meteorological Agency's underestimation of the tsunami's height issued three minutes after the earthquake is likely to have delayed the evacuation," the World Bank report said. "Others, believing that the coastal dikes would protect them, may have delayed evacuations." The World Bank study didn't just go on a shelf. It had another aim. Eight countries — Armenia, Indonesia, Kenya, the Kyrgyz Republic, Maldives, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and Uganda — vowed to use the report's results and visits to Japan to tailor disaster preparedness specific to their local systems. In Armenia, government officials developed structural measures and building codes based on their learning experiences in Japan. Armenia is at high risk for earthquakes. While studying how Japan handled post-Tohoku responses, government officials from Sierra Leone also wanted to learn more about the country's disaster prevention and risk management practices, specifically how natural hazards can slow economic development. "The measures and tools that the Japanese have designed and implemented were presented to (Sierra Leone) to demonstrate that a culture of prevention helps to sustain growth," the World Bank report said. Overcoming the Roadblocks of Recovery  With natural disasters increasing in frequency, and the need to learn from them perhaps greater than ever, the consulting firm McKinsey looked at why governments can't always effectively manage recovery. Although released in 2015, the McKinsey report "Improving Disaster Recovery: Lessons Learned in the United States" provides valuable advice today.  McKinsey found four roadblocks for governments:    Political pressure to disperse disaster relief is intense. Public expectations about the amount, pace and flexibility of recovery funding are rarely met because public officials tend to set unrealistic targets before they understand recovery issues.    Receiving and spending political aid can take a long time. For example, congressional approval of emergency funding can take months and environmental assessments even more months, while the rebuilding of complex capital infrastructure is not a quick endeavor.   Government leaders have an abundance of resources but face complex tasks they are unprepared to administer, so they often misjudge resources and skills required to deliver.   Recovery governance requires commitment to bold organizational changes that leaders are often too risk-averse to make.  McKinsey offered a long list of recommendations to improve response, and there are a few worth noting. Governments should appoint a "strong, experienced" leadership team and establish an integrated governance body to gain the support of the public, other government agencies and financial backers. This will help with other efforts, such as securing the ongoing advice of disaster experts, having vendors implement specific recovery programs, creating a procurement team and ensuring the leadership team has complete independence. Focused and disciplined disaster recovery is possible, the report notes. McKinsey cites the "quick win" recovery efforts following Hurricane Sandy in 2012. For instance, New Jersey allocated about $200 million worth of federal homeowner grants, giving more than 18,000 people $10,000 grants for construction expenses. And in only 100 days, a New York City program gave away $640 million to restore heat, power and hot water to 11,700 housing buildings. Those programs worked because those governments prioritized projects that required less lead time to establish than full-fledged repair and reconstruction programs, the report said. Disaster Prevention at All Levels of Government  "Whatever you think can't happen, assume it will," are wise words from a North Carolinian quoted in the Zurich Insurance report, "Events Are Natural, Disasters Are Not." As with the other studies, this one also offers lessons to learn from disasters. That North Carolina resident was quoted after Zurich examined the damage Hurricane Florence caused in that state in 2018. And things did "happen" because of flooding from Florence. Stricken coal ash waste storage sites released heavy metals into rivers, while hog waste escaped from storage lagoons and killed thousands of fish in the Cape Fear River. Here was, the report noted, an opportunity to transcend cross-jurisdictional hurdles (those posed by separate regulations in the energy and agricultural industries) and have stronger coordinated enforcement by governments. Indeed, governments will inevitably drive the response to disaster and the preparation for them, according to Mount Holyoke's Aguilar. "Government matters," she said. "Without government support it will be really hard to address these issues at the local levels." 

Lessons to Learn From Disasters Can Shape Preventative Measures

Key Takeaways  Orville and Wilbur Wright may have been inspired by a toy helicopter. They started their careers by making a printing press and opening a bicycle shop in Ohio. On Dec. 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers flying machine became the world's first airplane with a flight time of 12s.December 17 marks the 115th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight, a major milestone in the history of aviation. Orville and Wilbur Wright didn't just invent the first airplane; they created a prototype that included many inventions that underlie today's airplanes. The many Wright Brothers inventions are still used today to develop aircraft that go far beyond the capabilities that they could have ever imagined back in Kitty Hawk.What Sparked Their Passion for Innovation?Orville and Wilbur Wright, born 1867 and 1871, grew up in a home that fostered independent thinking long before "innovation" and "disruption" were buzzwords. The home was equipped with an extensive library and according to Encyclopedia Britannica, Orville once said that in their home "there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate whatever aroused their curiosity."The Wright brothers were raised by parents who were outspoken, free thinking and technically savvy — all attributes that provided an excellent background for their adult lives as inventors. Their mother was a tinkerer ahead of her time. She was the top mathematician in her college class and as an adult she built household appliances for herself and toys for her children, according to The National Park Service (NPS). Their father was a bishop who openly opposed aspects of his church's ideology and eventually split from the church amid controversy.In 1878, according to NPS, their father brought Wilbur and Orville a souvenir from a business trip: a rubber band–powered toy helicopter. They made copies of this toy — possible signs of future Wright brothers inventions. The helicopter was based on a design by French inventor Alphonse Pénaud, whose work in aeronautics they would eventually study as grown men.Their passion for learning and building grew with age, and they started their careers by making a printing press and opening a bicycle shop in Ohio. The Wright brothers were inspired by leaders in early aviation, and according to Britannica, they had followed the work of Otto Lilienthal, a German glider pioneer who died in a glider crash. Fascinated with his work, Orville and Wilbur started investigating flight research, consulting with the Smithsonian Institution for aeronautics resources. In 1900, they wrote to introduce themselves to Octave Chanute, an engineer and a leading authority on aviation who became a personal friend and champion of the Wright brothers during the critical years of experimentation that followed.How They Designed Their First Flying MachineThe brothers started with a kite to test how to control and balance an aircraft, and they tested early designs for a system they called "wing warping" in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. For several years, according to NOAA, the brothers went back and forth between North Carolina and their home in Ohio. They calculated, experimented and developed their designs in a custom wind tunnel at their Ohio bike shop, and then assembled their prototypes and field tested in Kitty Hawk.After extensive research, testing and design changes, on Dec. 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, their flying machine became the world's first airplane when it successfully completed a 12-second flight. By the end of that day, they had demonstrated an even longer flight, lasting 59 seconds and covering 852 feet. This was a pivotal moment in the history of aviation.A Lasting Impact on AviationTheir groundbreaking innovations shaped future airplanes and the aviation space in general. Peter Jakab, chief curator at Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, explained in an educational video, "They knew that the airplane was not one invention but many inventions that all needed to work in concert for the machine to be successful."The Wright brothers paid close attention to each component to build a successful airplane. They focused on the basic building blocks for an airplane: wings (a lifting surface to get them into the air), a control system (to control the plane while flying), a propulsion system, aerodynamics and structural design — all the elements that would make up the airplanes of the future.Much like the Wright brothers, Northrop Grumman pays close attention to each component to build successful aircraft and aviation innovation. Learn more about what we do.

Culmination of Wright Brothers' Inventions

Back in the day, urgent deliveries by UPS, Amazon or even the local pizza parlor arrived at your door on four wheels in the hands of a two-legged human. Don't look up now, but drone delivery companies are working to land a different type of future in your front yard, one that will keep your pizza hot, save you a late-night trip to the pharmacy or even help you save a life with emergency medical supplies. Poised for Takeoff In recent months, reports Wired, several well-known companies including UPS and Google have taken serious steps toward launching commercial drone-based delivery services. In March, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorized UPS and drone maker Matternet to begin using drones, or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), to deliver medical specimens across North Carolina-based WakeMed's medical campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. In April, Google spinoff Wing Aviation received the FAA's first certification for a commercial drone delivery service. And Forbes reports that the FAA has authorized Amazon to conduct a year of drone research, testing and pilot training in authorized flight areas, but not to conduct deliveries yet. Drone delivery companies tout reduced carbon emissions and quicker delivery times — drones use electric motors and avoid local road congestion — as the key benefits of using drones to make time-sensitive deliveries. Drone operators are also taking advantage of rapid growth in the maturity, availability and reliability of drone technology. Safety First Hovering amid this new enthusiasm for drone-based delivery services, however, are questions about how best to ensure air traffic safety, particularly for drones operating in densely populated areas. "The Federal Aviation Administration is responsible for the safety and security of all aircraft in the National Airspace System," said an FAA spokesperson. "Our long-term goal is to integrate drones safely into that system so that our society can reap the full benefits of drone technology." Integration Challenges The designs and reliability of drones have greatly improved in recent years but the integration of drones into local and national airspace remains challenging, explains Doug Davis, director of airworthiness and airspace integration for Northrop Grumman, a developer of autonomous aircraft systems. "If you're going to operate new aircraft, which is what drones are considered, you need to operate them within the same framework of operational risk and requirements that apply to all aircraft operating in the domestic airspace of the United States," he said.  Davis' real concern is not the technical maturity of drones — over the past 15 years the number incidents of operators losing control of their drones has dropped dramatically — but rather, the high potential density of drones above populated areas, and an inadequate knowledge of the aviation environment by a new generation of delivery drone operators. "Many of these new operators are coming into the field from a purely business perspective, with no aviation background at all," he explained. "They often just don't understand what's in the air with them." His fears are compounded, he added, by the current limited ability of drones to avoid collisions with other objects in their path, whether it's a bird, a building, or another drone. The FAA shares Davis' concern. "Several companies have developed technology intended to automatically detect and avoid other aircraft but the technology is still maturing," admitted the FAA spokesperson. "Solving that challenge would allow longer flights beyond a pilot's visual line of sight and help enable routine drone delivery." Encouraging Innovation  To create an air traffic safety environment where the public is safe and drone delivery service companies can succeed, the FAA is working closely with drone operators such as UPS to define new regulations that support both safety and innovation. "For drones, we're focusing on the top-level safety performance we expect rather than dictating a detailed aircraft design that will meet that safety guideline," explained the FAA spokesperson. This approach encourages drone operators to meet overall safety and operational requirements while not discouraging them from exploring new, more innovative ways to deliver products and services, the spokesperson added. Flying Forward For its part, UPS is trying to build public confidence in drone-based services by simply delivering on its promises: "UPS has conducted numerous public drone demonstrations for urgent commercial and non-urgent residential deliveries," said Kyle Peterson, a spokesperson for UPS. "We also partner with GAVI and Zipline to use drones to deliver blood products to remote locations in Africa. These efforts help shape and inform the evolving drone policy in the U.S." In July, reports Reuters, UPS announced the creation of a drone delivery subsidiary, UPS Flight Forward, and revealed that it has applied for FAA certification to expand the business. Managing the Future Current FAA safety regulations prohibit drones from operating over populated areas or beyond line of sight without an FAA waiver. Any drone to be used for package delivery must obtain an FAA airworthiness certificate. And drones are not allowed to operate at night. The FAA recognizes, however, that it is operating in a dynamic, technology-driven environment where the pressure to integrate drones safely and efficiently into the national airspace is increasing every day. To that end, the agency is working with NASA's Ames Research Center and other federal agencies to develop an Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) system analogous to the current air traffic management system for manned aircraft. "The UTM system is an automated, machine-to-machine system that does not rely on air traffic controllers," said NASA Ames' Marcus Johnson, deputy project manager for NASA's UTM program. "It relies instead on drones to self-report their positions and flight activities to a group of federated UAS service suppliers on the ground." The service suppliers, Johnson adds, share information with each other about the drones' proposed flight activities, and help deconflict those activities from other operations occurring in the same air space. The service suppliers also communicate with the FAA through a flight information management system. Since 2016, the UTM program has undergone four phases of testing to demonstrate drones' ability to operate safely in increasingly dense and challenging traffic environments. NASA reports that the most recent testing was completed in August 2019 and "focused on UAS operations in higher-density urban areas for tasks such as newsgathering and package delivery." Reality Check According to Johnson, the UTM testing revealed that drone operations remain potentially vulnerable to "microclimates" and radio frequency (RF) interference. "If you operate a drone in dense urban environments, you're likely to encounter a diverse set of small, localized weather patterns," Johnson said. "These microclimates can really challenge your situational awareness of current flight conditions, particularly if you're operating the drone beyond visual line of sight." In such a situation, Johnson adds, the urban density may also limit an operator's options for landing a drone quickly and safely. RF interference also poses a greater potential threat to drone operations than most delivery service companies realize, he added. "For command and control, drone operators often use the same unlicensed frequency bands — 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz — used by residential or commercial Wi-Fi routers," explained Johnson. If a drone flies too close to an office building where such routers are in use, it can experience a sudden "loss of link," i.e. a loss of communication with its operator, which can create safety hazards for the drone and people on the ground. RF interference can also be caused by steel-reinforced concrete and other building materials found commonly in the urban environment. Writing a New Chapter The final step in integrating drones safely into the national airspace will be to transition the UTM rules of engagement into practice and to gain acceptance for commercial drone operations from all potential stakeholders. The FAA's UAS Integration Pilot Program (IPP),created in late 2017, aims to create that harmony. It has brought UAS operators and manufacturers together with state, local and tribal governments to test and validate advanced drone operations in various beyond-line-of-sight applications including infrastructure monitoring, border protection and package delivery. According to Johnson, the technologies demonstrated by the UTM program have accelerated the delivery industry's readiness to begin using drones more regularly while helping to inform the FAA's current drone policy and rulemaking activities. For its part, the FAA is cautiously optimistic about the future of commercial drone operations. "Societal acceptance of drones will be predicated on the public's expectation for safety, just as in the airline industry," said the FAA spokesperson. "Working together, we can accelerate the development of the UTM ecosystem and usher in the necessary social transformation. It's an exciting challenge as we integrate unmanned aircraft into our nation's airspace and help write a new chapter in aviation history." If you're eager to see your career in autonomous aircraft systems take off, please visit us at www.careers.northropgrumman.com.

Are Drone Delivery Services Safe Enough for Takeoff?

Key Takeaways Technology is transforming the future of the aviation industry, with AI having an outsized impact. The aviation industry is moving toward more environmentally friendly propulsion technology. Infrastructure and regulations are the biggest challenges for the future of aviation technology.In 1903, the Wright brothers' flight of a heavier-than-air powered craft answered a question: Yes, it's possible for humans to fly. It also fostered an obsession with flying. For more than a century, humans have been pushing the boundaries and looking for new ways to touch the sky. With commercial and military air travel now firmly commonplace, what's in store for the future of the aviation industry?In December 1903, Wilbur Wright managed a flight of 852 feet in just under a minute — that might not be far or fast by today's standards, but it was a massive milestone for human ingenuity at the time, explains the Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company. By 1914, the first commercial air service began operating between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida, according to Space.com. By World War I, propeller planes dotted the sky, and craft capable of breaking the sound barrier and carrying thousands of pounds in cargo and hundreds of people followed as the science of flight was developed and refined.Now, we look to the future of what's to come in the industry — and it promises to be exciting.Technology Is Transforming the Future"The future of aviation," according to Roddey Smith, a Northrop Grumman fellow in the aeronautics sector, "could include a 30-minute ride in a spacecraft from one side of the earth to the other."Can you imagine flying from the East Coast to the West Coast in a matter of minutes? Clearly, the future of the aviation industry won't look anything like it does today. Already, drones are everywhere, and there are small aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing.Smith believes that artificial intelligence (AI) will have an outsized impact on aviation technology. "AI can take in vast amounts of data, analyze it and come up with a set of proposed solutions for a question," Smith says. "AI works at light speed; it takes in more data than you could ever ingest in your whole lifetime, and then, it gives you a bunch of viable options."The technology is now at a point where aircraft can take off, fly and land all by themselves in auto mode. AI can take the air traffic pattern and the conditions of the runway into account without any human intervention. That said, there will probably always be a human in the middle to mediate and decide how to employ AI technology, but machines will eventually become smarter because they'll be able to think faster, collect more data and deal with a lot more information than any human ever could."Over time, though," says Smith, "we will slowly build trust in the AI entity itself."Eco-friendly Aviation TechnologyThere's a motivation by the government and environmental organizations to make aircraft more environmentally friendly to conserve resources. With this in mind, aviation technology is moving toward changes in propulsion technology: The future of aviation could include a hybrid combination of electric and gas or hydrogen and fuel cells."Batteries are one of the most important make-or-break technologies for the future of aviation industry," says Smith. "Especially for aviation range and performance." His team seeks out industry experts and leaders to integrate the latest batteries into Northrop Grumman's portfolio products. Smith and his team are also keenly interested in propulsion technologies."Sustainability and eco-friendly aviation is a viable alternative to traditional jet fuel," he says, "but the experience will look different." Instead of a jet that's able to fly 10,000 miles with 400 people, electric aviation technology might begin by flying half as far with fewer people on board.Infrastructure IssuesFlying cars aren't a technology problem — those vehicles already exist. The problem is how to regulate them and how to set rules in place in a 3D space. Without regulation, the future of the aviation industry would be like driving your car without stoplights, street signs or traffic rules. Hundreds of thousands of individuals taking off and flying in the same airspace without any coordination would be a disaster.To fly an airplane now, you have to file a flight plan ahead of time, and there's a series of air traffic control operators with radars and radios directing the airplane's every turn. The Federal Aviation Administration is currently under a tremendous amount of pressure to come up with guidelines to regulate how thousands of air vehicles would operate in the sky.Much of the technologies that would control the movement of air vehicles would need to be automated. A stationary drone or system of location beacons, for example, could be like a police officer who stands in the middle of an intersection with a whistle and waves people through. With new aviation technology, airplanes could swirl around and over each other and go into a holding pattern when needed.The Thrill of FlightWhatever the future of aviation looks like, it will be exciting to see — and equally thrilling to watch develop."Pilots still just love the joy of flying," says Smith. "I don't think that will ever change." But what really lights up a pilot is when they're able to execute a mission with the aircraft and be effective at their job, something technology will likely make even easier in the near future.Find out more about Northrop Grumman's innovative ways to soar.

Future of the Aviation Industry: Is the Sky the Limit?

Engineers launch specialized aircraft into the skies and pitch payloads into space. Did you also know that, as an engineer, you can give people wings too? Engineering accessibility helps people with disabilities fly in a space that most of us take for granted.Without direct experience, it's difficult to know exactly what obstacles people with disabilities face in everyday life, but pause for a moment and imagine how you would use your computer without hands? How about riding a bike when your balance isn't good or your legs are too short? ... and how would you surf the internet to read this blog post?Engineering for Assistive TechThis is where assistive technology (AT) comes in — devices that help people with disabilities manage daily life. Probably the most famous and globally recognized is Stephen Hawking's voice — a computer interface that powers his communication, allowing him to communicate with the world around him. Other examples of AT that you may see every day include customized grips for holding a toothbrush or spoon securely, walkers, wheelchairs and ramps for mobility and electronic solutions for computer access. All of these solutions require engineering input to bring them to life. Many of them also need volunteers and organizations bringing experts together with patients and their families.Community Partner V-LINCCollaboration often starts in the workplace. Companies offer skills, workforce and sometimes production capacity to give back to the community. This is true for Northrop Grumman which has a long history with assistive technology, starting with prosthetic limb research after World War II. V-LINC, an organization that designs and builds customized AT solutions, recently recognized NG Baltimore aerospace engineers as Partner of the Year for their volunteer work.Based in Maryland, V-LINC is the merger of two groups, one of which started in 1982 with a former Westinghouse (and now Northrop Grumman) employee. The company influence continues, with employees forming one of the largest volunteer teams. Over the decades, they have worked on various V-LINC projects including bike modification clinics that get kids in the saddle, a mobility chariot to help a family exercise together and a seizure alarm for nighttime monitoring — all small engineering projects that make a huge impact on the families involved.Workplace Buzz at FabLabWithin the workplace itself, the NG FabLab (Fabrication Laboratory) initiative at the Space Park campus in Redondo Beach, California, also connects company volunteers with AT. In January 2016, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems employees engineered a custom motorized easel for an artist. The engineers spent time with Raul Pizarro, whose muscular dystrophy limits mobility so he can work only in a small area. Volunteers took measurements and 3D scans to design a solution that would allow Pizarro to work once again on larger canvases. When completed, the system helped move the canvas so that Pizarro could execute the full scope of his dreams.Engineering Accessibility With the Next GenerationNorthrop Grumman is also inspiring the next generation of engineers. A recent V-LINC project matched a Northrop Grumman volunteer with a college student team to learn about sensory processing disorders among autistic children and youth.Another FabLab event in October, 2016 exposed middle-school students to engineering design for AT. Held in collaboration with the National Science Teachers Association, the students used 3D-printing technology to build components for prosthetic hands designed for the specialized needs of growing children. With all the exciting tech and equipment available at FabLab, not only did the students learn about AT but they also saw how cool it is to work as an engineer.Low Tech Works TooAT doesn't always mean high tech; limited resources often require creative solutions and improvisation, something that engineers are good at. Last August, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems engineers brainstormed ideas for improving toilet access. Inspired by challenges faced by a Ugandan amputee and landmine survivor, they used their engineering know-how for solutions that make pit latrines more accessible. Prototypes included an ingenious portable seat that balances between crutches.High tech or low tech — the common feature is that engineering solutions help people with disabilities to face daily life. Maybe next time you see your work soaring across the skies, imagine the excitement of using those same mad skillz to give someone else wings.

Disabilities Take Flight When Accessibility Is Engineered

With all the recent attention on commercial space flight, it's easy to overlook the innovative flight technologies that are changing the game right here on Earth. Take, for example, Scaled Composites' Proteus high-altitude aircraft. Originally known as Scaled Composites Model 281 and designed for 100-150 flight hours, the craft has passed the 4,500-hour mark and continues to expand the limits of human aerospace knowledge. Aviation Innovation When the Wright brothers first took to the skies in 1903, they touched off a firestorm of aviation evolution. Less than 15 years later, propeller planes were valuable military assets and innovators like romance-novelist-turned-pilot Barbara Cartland developed new ways to launch, tow and precision-land unpowered gliders. In 1960, Pan Am launched the first Boeing 747, proving that large-scale commercial air travel was not just possible but also cost-effective, according to The Museum of Flight. 1998 saw the development of Scaled Composites' Proteus, the brain child of then-president Burt Rutan. Originally designed as a telecommunications platform intended to provide high-speed internet over cities, Proteus evolved into a platform for research, including high-altitude environmental and telecommunications studies. The Proteus Plan According to Scaled Composites, the craft uses an all-composite airframe and graphite-epoxy sandwich construction. In addition, the tandem-wing Proteus has a wingspan of 77 feet, 7 inches expandable up to 92 feet with the use of optional wingtip assemblies. It is piloted by two crew members inside a pressurized cabin. If that description sounds a little odd, rest easy knowing it's a shared sentiment: The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) describes the Proteus aircraft as "a somewhat ungainly-looking bird." But it's all part of the plan. The craft's name comes from the name of a Greek sea-god who could change forms at will and is the root of the English word "protean," which means "ever-changing" — and the Proteus has proven itself versatile enough for use in NASA, DARPA, DOE, the International H20 Project (IHOP 2002) and Transformational Space Corp missions. The changeable nature of Proteus' design is also evident in payload handling. According to Scaled Composites' bids and proposals manager Erik Hoffman, "'you really decouple the payload from the plane,'" making it possible to switch between payloads in days rather than weeks or months. Bob Withrow, vice president of engineering at Scaled Composites, puts it simply: "'It turns out that at Scaled, a lot of what we build are flying trucks. It doesn't always start that way, but with ARES, Firebird, Proteus, all those aircraft were started with a specific mission in mind, and after we had done the demonstration, it turns out that they are really good at doing some other things.'" Big Numbers As noted by NASA, the high-altitude aircraft owns several world records for Federation Aeronautique Internationale Class C-1e vehicles including piloted altitude (63,245 ft), horizontal flight altitude (62,385 ft) and altitude with 1,000 kg of payload (55,994). According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), meanwhile, the plane completed flight number 1,000 in June 2017 — not bad for a craft that took to the skies more than 19 years ago. Multipurpose Mission Over the last two decades, Proteus has been involved with multiple NASA research initiatives, including some of the original work on allowing unmanned aircraft to detect and avoid other airborne vehicles. In March 2001, the craft gathered data over the North Pole as part of the TRACE-P mission; in August of the same year, it did work for NASA's Chesapeake Lighthouse & Aircraft Measurements for Satellites (CLAMS) program to measure ocean characteristics; and in 2006 it housed the development version of the Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program radar system. It's also important to remember the Proteus aircraft's roots as a telecommunications relay — original plans called for a "fleet" of 100 Proteus-like aircraft providing high-altitude broadband communications. The advent of in-ground fiber optic technology shelved that idea, but Proteus' original mission was ahead of its time, and other companies are studying similar missions today. Protean Task The unique nature of Scaled Composites' high altitude aircraft makes it indispensable for airborne research missions. Over 19 years and 1,000 flights, the craft has shattered airborne records and helped scientists unlock new atmospheric data, and it may pave the way for ultra-high-speed air-to-ground telecommunications. If you're interested in the shaping the future of aviation, you're in luck. Take a look at the latest job postings from Northrop Grumman and Scaled Composites.

Sky's the Limit? Proteus High Altitude Aircraft Begs to Differ

Key Takeaways Anything over five times the speed of sound is hypersonic. Challenges with frictional heat have hampered hypersonic development. New technologies, such as oblique detonation waves, may make hypersonic speeds possible at scale.Hypersonic speeds are possible but problematic. From managing intense friction heat to controlling detonation shockwaves, going (really) fast and staying safe isn't easy. New developments in hypersonic technologies, however, may pave the way for the next generation of speedy air and spacecraft.Fast, Faster, FastestConventional, commercial aircraft travel is much slower than the speed of sound, typically between 500 and 600 miles per hour. Jet fighters, meanwhile, regularly break the sound barrier. According to the official U.S. Air Force website, the F-15E Strike Eagle can reach speeds of Mach 2.5, or 1,875 miles per hour.Push the speed limit to Mach 5 or more, however, and you're in hypersonic territory. At this point, aircraft travel would be almost a mile each second, making even intercontinental travel a relatively quick trip.Breaking the Speed Barrier ... AgainOnly one human-piloted airplane has ever achieved hypersonic flight. According to Space.com, this was the legendary X-15 research plane, which made its last hypersonic flight 50 years ago in 1967.In addition, orbital spacecraft briefly hit hypersonic speeds during their climb into space and again when returning to Earth's atmosphere. The Space Shuttle operated as a hypersonic aircraft during re-entry, before slowing down to merely supersonic speeds. Beyond the initial X-15 flight and the occasional spacecraft, however, hypersonic flight has been limited to a handful of unpiloted research vehicles.The biggest barrier to piloted hypersonic aircraft? These speeds are hot stuff. Any object passing through the air at Mach 5 and above produces intense frictional heating as it pushes the air out of its path. Keeping this heat from melting the airframe is the first great challenge of sustained hypersonic flight.The second temperature trouble is keeping the heat from melting critical parts of a jet engine. This is not a problem for rocket planes, such as the X-15, but the intakes of conventional jet engines and even ramjets are limited to about Mach 6 — toward the "slow" (relatively speaking) end of the hypersonic range. So-called scramjets (short for supersonic combusting ramjet, a technology that limits heat buildup) have shown promise in sustaining higher speeds without burning up.Work on new engine technologies is also underway. For example, researchers at the University of Central Florida recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to help develop their hypersonic high-enthalpy system. Their approach relies on detonation — fuel is detonated in a hypersonic reaction chamber. This detonation produces a shockwave that sends aircraft hurtling forward at hypersonic speeds.While detonation-based propulsion efforts aren't new, they're notoriously difficult to control. Researchers at the university also encountered this problem but have developed a potential solution: oblique detonation waves. Unlike their rotating counterparts, which naturally spin and are harder to manage, oblique waves are stationary and stabilized, allowing for a more focused shockwave output. The result is a hypersonic propulsion system that could deliver speeds between Mach 6 and Mach 17, or 4,600 to 13,000 miles per hour.Hypersonics for National DefenseAfter half a century on the back burner, what has put hypersonics back in the technology spotlight? The most immediate concerns relate to national defense, as noted by Politico. With intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching hypersonic speeds in the upper atmosphere, there's a growing need for hypersonic military aircraft that can intercept these missiles and carry out high-speed reconnaissance of potential threats.In addition, many air defense systems are now able to target and shoot down merely supersonic aircraft, potentially even stealthy ones, and the only way for aircraft to avoid these systems is to outrun them by reaching and sustaining hypersonic speeds.National security also depends on hypersonic missile defense systems capable of detecting and responding to hypersonic missile speeds. The field of "counter hypersonics" focuses on neutralizing hypersonic threats from detection to interception.Hypersonics for Commercial UseWhile the first operational hypersonic planes will be military, a new generation of hypersonic airliners could follow them through the speed barrier. Supersonic transports, such as the now-retired Concorde, did not sufficiently reduce intercontinental travel times enough to transform commercial flying. Hypersonic transports, however, could fundamentally change the airline industry.Consider the straight-line distance between Los Angeles and New York, which is roughly 2,445 miles. Using a conventional jet engine flying at 500 miles per hour, the trip takes just over 4 hours. In a hypersonic plane capable of reaching Mach 6, however, this trip is a quick 30 minutes.And beyond the hypersonic transport lies the possibility of a true spaceplane, an aircraft that could take off and land like an ordinary jet, but capable of carrying payloads — and astronauts — into orbit. A hypersonic orbital spaceplane would make space travel as affordable as air travel is today.The technology of hypersonics calls for flying outside the box.This need for speed is something that Northrop Grumman has been passionate about since its pioneering Flying Wing took to the air in the 1940s. Learn more.

Hypersonic Speeds: When "Fast" Just Isn't Fast Enough

Are car/plane hybrids the next "big thing" in transportation? Are jetpacks on the horizon? Or is this just wishful thinking? When it comes to the future of personal aerospace technology, is the sky really our limit? The Wright Brothers' 1903 flight of a heavier-than-air powered craft answered a question: Yes, it is possible for humans to fly. It also created an obsession. For more than a century, we've been pushing the boundaries and looking for new ways to touch the sky. With commercial and military air travel now firmly commonplace, innovator focus has once again turned to personal aviation. Historical Precedent In December 1903, Wilbur Wright managed a flight of 852 feet in just under a minute; not far or fast, but a massive milestone for human ingenuity, explained Wright-Brothers.org. By 1914 the first commercial air service began operating between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida; by World War I, propeller planes dotted the sky, according to Space.com. Craft capable of carrying thousands of pounds in cargo and hundreds of people, and breaking the sound barrier, followed as the science of flight was developed and refined. Personal Interest In a callback to the first powered flights, consumer desire for personal aviation has remained largely unanswered. It makes sense: Strapping yourself to a rickety craft at high speed doesn't seem like a great idea for continued health or sanity. But the dream persists. Consider the massive, continual interest in small-scale aerospace technology like Marty McFly's hoverboard from "Back to the Future II," which, despite decades of trying, never materialized. Some "personal" options are available; small Cessna-type crafts are a cool $9 million, according to the Indianapolis Business Journal, but these aren't really in reach of the average aviation enthusiast. Increasing gridlock, rising gas prices and the development of AI-driven automobiles, however, have reignited the dream of personal aviation. So what's next? Not-So-High Flyer First up is a formerly secret project from Google founder Larry Page aptly called the Flyer. It's a single-seater craft that is designed for water landings and takeoffs, weighs 250 pounds and uses 10 battery-powered propellers. According to The Verge, the Flyer "looks sort of like a bobsled mounted on a couple of pontoons" and isn't designed to go more than 10 feet above water or fly faster than 20 miles per hour. Still, there's already a waiting list for the vehicle. While it doesn't offer total aerial freedom, it's certainly a unique take on personal aviation. Sound and Fury? Jetpacks are another area of interest. The idea of truly personal flight has ignited continual desire for this kind of freedom. JetPack Aviation is trying to make this a reality, for both the public and the military. In 2015, CEO David Mayman flew a jetpack around the Statue of Liberty, which sparked additional public flights. Another option for personalized power takeoffs? Flying cars. CNet points to the AeroMobil flying car, which can fly 465 miles on a tank of fuel but also fold up its wings and take to the roads at up to 100 miles per hour. The caveat? Predicted cost is north of $1.5 million. As noted by New Atlas, meanwhile, the CityHawk VTOL out of Israel is also taking on personal aerial transport — its six-seater vehicle uses contra-rotating props instead of wings to achieve flight and can reach speeds of 170 miles per hour. The first manned tests are slated for 2021-2022. Infrastructure Issues According to Wired, many of these new vehicles don't fit into any current FAA classifications, meaning they'll need to jump through bureaucratic hoops to secure regulatory approval. Nasdaq noted that the German government recently approved flying taxi testing in the city of Ingolstadt, while ride-sharing service Uber is exploring the safety and regulatory challenges in taking its business to the skies. Tech Crunch cuts to heart of the matter: How will personal aviation devices be integrated with public airspace? This requires decisions about autonomy versus AI-piloted craft, as well as infrastructure to track vehicles in real-time and autonomous technology to coordinate thousands of flight paths simultaneously while mitigating collision risk. The Future of Flight Bottom line? Personal flight is possible. It might not take the form of hoverboards, but innovators are still finding ways to soar.

The Future of Personal Aviation: Sky's the Limit?

  The world of travel may be on the verge of getting faster — a lot faster. Researchers and industry are putting a new emphasis on hypersonics, the technology of atmospheric flight at more than five times the speed of sound, or about a mile per second. While the challenges of hypersonic flight are great, the potential is enormous, ranging from intercontinental passenger flights taking less than two hours, to achieving the dream of an aircraft that can fly into orbit and return to do it again.Breaking the Speed Barrier ... Again Only one human-piloted airplane has ever achieved hypersonic flight. As Douglas Messier writes at Space.com, this was the legendary X-15 research plane, which made its last hypersonic flight 50 years ago in 1967.  All orbital spacecraft briefly enter the hypersonic regime during their climb into space, and again when returning to Earth's atmosphere. The Space Shuttle operated as a hypersonic aircraft during re-entry, before slowing down to merely supersonic speeds. But otherwise, since 1967, hypersonic flight has been limited to a handful of unpiloted research vehicles. This limited role has been due to the technology challenges of hypersonics, which center largely around heat. Any object passing through the air at Mach 5 and above produces intense frictional heating as it pushes the air out of its path. Keeping this sheer heat from melting the airframe is the first great challenge of sustained hypersonic flight. The second heat-related challenge is keeping the heat from melting critical parts of a jet engine. This is not a problem for rocket planes such as the X-15, but the intakes of conventional jet engines and even ramjets are limited to about Mach 6 — toward the "slow" (relatively speaking!) end of the hypersonic range. So-called scramjets (for supersonic combusting ramjet, a technology that limits heat buildup) have shown promise in sustaining higher speeds without burning up.Hypersonics — Military and Civilian Potential After half a century on the back burner, what has put hypersonics back in the technology spotlight? The most immediate concerns relate to national defense, as Patrick Tucker outlines at Defense One. Like spacecraft, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) reach hypersonic speeds in the upper atmosphere. But they cannot be steered, or change course beyond very narrow limits, rendering them inflexible. In contrast, a hypersonic aircraft could change course to evade enemy attack or in response to a changing mission requirement. This is what makes hypersonic performance attractive to defense planners. What makes it critical for them is the growing capability of air defense systems that can target and shoot down merely supersonic aircraft, potentially even stealthy ones. The only way for U.S. aircraft to avoid these systems is to outrun them by reaching and sustaining hypersonic speeds. But while the first operational hypersonic planes will be military, a new generation of hypersonic airliners could follow them through the speed barrier. Supersonic transports such as the now-retired Concorde did not sufficiently reduce intercontinental travel times enough to transform commercial flying. A hypersonic transport would be another matter — making a transcontinental flight take no longer than a regional hop does today. And beyond the hypersonic transport lies the possibility of a true spaceplane, an aircraft that could take off and land like an ordinary jet, but capable of carrying payloads — and astronauts — into orbit. A hypersonic orbital spaceplane would make space travel as affordable as air travel is today. The technology of hypersonics calls for flying outside the box. This is something that Northrop Grumman has been doing since its pioneering Flying Wing took to the air in the 1940s. And as Darren Orf reports at Gizmodo, it continues to fly outside the box with proposals for hypersonic test aircraft such as the XS-1.

Hypersonics — The Far, Far Side of the Sound Barrier

 Today's technology companies offer many nontraditional incentives to attract, develop and retain the most talented employees. Flexible floor plans and fun company outings are becoming more common in the workplace, especially in startup environments. But large, well-established companies can offer a more dramatic job perk by providing opportunities for employees to work overseas.Why Employees Want to Work Overseas College students want to study abroad for many reasons: to see the world, experience a new culture, learn a new language and get a fresh start. Many adults have these same desires, but a foreign work assignment has the added benefits of a salary and invaluable professional development. When a local position feels too traditional but a job transfer seems too drastic, a rotational stay can be just right. By taking a foreign assignment, employees face exciting challenges that keep their jobs interesting and fulfilling. Or, to put it simply, they get paid to travel to exotic places. Living abroad can give employees a fresh perspective that is vital to personal growth and professional development. It is a chance to explore the world while learning new skills and gaining international business experience that will continue to be useful when they continue their careers upon returning to the United States. Northrop Grumman offers a two-year Global Engineer Rotation Program to select members of the aerospace division. One participant in this program, Kathryn Williams, says that working as the Australia aerospace program's technical lead for Aerospace Systems helped her think more broadly about both her personal life and her career. She is spending two years working with Australian government representatives toward a future acquisition of the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial system. "As an engineer who mainly supported programs in the execution phase, working on a program that isn't yet on contract is a great growth experience," she says. "The whole perspective is different. Although the concept of promoting customer confidence through technical excellence — combined with strong relationship building — is the same."How Employers Benefit A change of scenery helps boost creativity and productivity, which helps individuals and organizations alike. Clearly, there are many reasons for employees to consider working overseas. Therefore, foreign exchange programs can help large technology companies recruit and retain top talent. Today's job seekers are looking for a dynamic workplace, and what could be more exciting than moving to a new country? The best employees can also be recruited by competitors or look for new opportunities if they don't feel challenged. An overseas assignment can help keep things interesting and avoid boredom. Tyler Tamashiro is a Northrop Grumman engineer working to expand the company's presence in Tokyo. The engineering rotation has given him the opportunity to be the primary technical contact to customers and industry partners in Japan. "As a conduit between Northrop Grumman and the customer, I work to gain a mutual understanding and resolution on a range of subjects," he explains. "Face-to-face interaction is particularly important in a country such as Japan, where there is a greater chance of details and subtleties being lost in translation." Overseas exchange programs like Northrop Grumman's engineering rotation can help a company expand in target markets and participate in a global economy. Sending employees to live abroad can help increase business opportunities overseas and unite global teams. While international business travel is good enough for many transactions, it doesn't allow company representatives to go deep enough to make big changes. By living abroad, employees can uncover a country's uniqueness and discover subtle cultural differences that could make or break a deal.

Work Overseas: Give Your Career that International Intrigue

 It's called the "2nd Offset" and it happened in the late 1990s during US military operations in Kosovo. The term refers to an evolution of airborne warfare which saw the use of new technological advancements to significantly increase accuracy; in this case, the global positioning system (GPS). Now both civilian and military navigation system technologies rely on GPS to guide travelers, identify targets and pinpoint locations. The problem? GPS isn't perfect since it's possible to jam satellite signals or encounter locations on earth where these signals simply don't reach. As a result, agencies like DARPA, teams of scientific researchers and the US military are looking for new ways to solve a very old problem: finding our way around.The GPS Evolution As noted by PC World, original GPS receivers built in the 1970s were sometimes described as "50-pound manpacks," making them impractical for everyday use. Two decades later, they were the size of current smartphones — now, they're small enough that virtually every mobile device comes with an integrated GPS. Problem solved, right? Not quite. As GPS technology has developed, so have methods to block or confuse satellite signals — sometimes for law enforcement purposes and sometimes for criminal activity. It's now possible to purchase stand-alone jamming gadgets which interfere with any radio signals in a certain radius, buy "spoofing" tools which override actual signals to provide a fake location, or leverage the old-fashioned method of wrapping GPS-enabled devices in a metal sleeve to block the satellite signal.What's Old Is New Again? To enhance GPS functionality, other navigation system technologies have come a long way, allowing manufacturers to design standalone products which not only measure satellite position but also elevation and azimuth and then transmit this data wirelessly as required. But that's just the beginning. DARPA has shifted resources into designing self-contained instruments which can track position for long periods without relying on any external data: In theory, so long as a user's original position is known (via GPS or another method), a combination of high-precision clocks, gyroscopes and accelerometers could precisely mark out location independent of satellite services. Or consider the work of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, who developed a way to exploit "signals of opportunity" (SOP) to enable accurate navigation. Rather than the satellite signals, SOP technology uses existing communication signals such as cellular transmissions, radio and television waves or Wi-Fi signals to determine accurate position. Military navigation tech is also changing: According to Naval Technology, the Naval Academy has now returned to teaching celestial navigation (CelNav) to ensure that even if GPS signals are interrupted, ships and sailors can still make their way home or locate their objective. And while the move back to CelNav speaks to the inherent weakness of GPS, there's a case to be made for more long-term applications: Although stars do shift over time, they're essentially fixed for the purposes of human navigation. Developing devices which use a combination of traditional satellite technology and can also "see" celestial way points could not only add an extra layer of location legitimacy but also improve overall precision. Roll in SOPs and self-contained instruments and there's a huge market of opportunity to move beyond GPS and develop new ways to discover exactly where we are. "The art of navigation has always advanced through the synthesis of the old and the new, and this has been shown to be true even in the age of GPS," said Charles Volk, director of Advanced Technologies and Products at Northrop Grumman, on the unique combination of old and new developments in navigating. GPS technology prompted a revolution in navigation technology. And true to Volk's word, the sky's the limit as both new initiatives and old-school methods empower location services.

Sky's the Limit? Navigation System Technology Goes Old School for New Ideas

Key Takeaways Tacit Blue was an experimental prototype that demonstrated that aircraft could spy on enemy operations without being detected by radar. The new stealth aircraft featured slightly curved edges that were both stealthier and more aerodynamic. The difference between Tacit Blue and Global Hawk is that the earlier aircraft helped engineers develop stealth characteristics that were critical for the latter to become the premier provider of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.A stealth aircraft that was built in secrecy during the 1980s sounds thrilling, but it's actually a strange-looking relic that represents a major milestone in surveillance aircraft technology. Tacit Blue — nicknamed "the whale" for its unusual shape — was an experimental prototype that demonstrated that aircraft could spy on enemy operations without being detected by radar.During its three-year secret operation, Tacit Blue helped engineers develop low-observable (i.e., stealth) characteristics that are still critical in today's military aircraft. Read on to learn more about the technology behind stealth aircraft, and the difference between Tacit Blue and Global Hawk.Undercover in the '80sMuch like many great inventions, Tacit Blue wasn't immediately successful. The aircraft was developed as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Battlefield Surveillance Aircraft Experiment in the 1970s.DARPA asked Northrop Grumman to continue the project to create an aircraft that could observe enemies from above without being detected. To peer through the clouds to see what was happening on the ground, an advanced radar was required.Instead of adding radar equipment to an existing jet, a new aircraft was built around a large radar system that was revolutionary for its time because it could point its beam in different directions without needing to physically move. The resulting design was a rectangular aircraft with slightly rounded edges and thin wings.Prior to Tacit Blue, stealth aircraft typically featured faceted surfaces, which were good at minimizing radar detection but bad at flying aerodynamically. The "whale" proved that slightly curved edges were both stealthier and more aerodynamic than flatter designs. This revelation influenced the designs of surveillance aircraft and bombers for decades.The DescendantsDuring Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System was first deployed. It used the sensor systems that were originally developed for Tacit Blue, which allowed it to determine the direction, speed and patterns of military activity of ground vehicles and helicopters.Global Hawk is an unmanned aircraft system designed to fly at high altitudes to provide near-real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. While it has been through several iterations since it debuted in 1998, the Block 30 Global Hawk carries sophisticated imaging and electronic signal sensors for situational awareness and intelligence-gathering over large geographic areas.The newer RQ-4 Global Hawk can fly at high altitudes for more than 30 hours and gather near-real-time, high-resolution imagery of large areas of land in all types of weather and during day or night. The unmanned aircraft system is like a flying robotic supercomputer. It's equipped with a synthetic aperture radar/moving target indicator, a high-resolution electro-optical digital camera and a third-generation infrared sensor. All data collected is transmitted through high bandwidth satellite communication links to ground stations for processing and exploitation.Global Hawk has amassed more than 320,000 flight hours. It has flown missions in support of military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, North Africa and the greater Asia-Pacific region. But Global Hawk has also been used for humanitarian efforts for disaster relief in Haiti and Japan, as well as by NASA for observing weather and climate patterns. Its intelligence-gathering capabilities allow civil authorities greater ability to respond to natural disasters, conduct search-and-rescue operations and gather weather and atmospheric data to help forecasters predict the paths of storms.The difference between Tacit Blue and Global Hawk is that Tacit Blue operated in secrecy from 1982 to 1985, laid the groundwork for Global Hawk and was eventually revealed to the public in 1996. It is now on display at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio (but you can also take a virtual cockpit tour from home).Learn more about Global Hawk and the latest from Northrop Grumman.

The Difference Between Tacit Blue and Global Hawk Surveillance Aircraft

Key Takeaways  Northrop Grumman's autonomous Global Hawk can "see" through clouds and weather to provide disaster zone data. The Firebird aircraft, meanwhile, can convert between human-flown and un-piloted to explore more dangerous areas. Devices such as FINDER analyze how signals change when they bounce back after transmission. FINDER detected the heartbeats of buried survivors in Nepal.When people are trapped under debris without access to fresh air or water, timing is crucial. In disaster scenarios such as earthquakes, floods and terrorist attacks or local infrastructure collapses, survivors and rescue workers contend with precarious scenes, often without the help of communications networks. Disaster relief technology can find survivors just in time.When hazards such as tsunamis and wildfires get out of control, they become disasters that can turn an otherwise peaceful location into something like a war zone. While military leaders use advanced technology for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), the same technology can be applied to disaster aid.A Bird's-Eye ViewAutonomous aircraft can fly above disaster zones to collect images and data that rescue teams can use to decide how to proceed.Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk, for example, provides views of disaster zones without putting people at unnecessary risk. This autonomous aircraft system is designed to fly at high altitudes for long hours without a pilot. In the defense industry, Global Hawk provides military field commanders with real-time ISR over large swaths of land, gathering high-resolution imagery via infrared cameras that can "see" through clouds and bad weather, day and night. In addition to intelligence, Global Hawk fleets have also supported air and ground users with communications relay support. Similarly, the same aircraft can be utilized as a disaster relief technology.After a devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, Global Hawk surveilled damaged airports to find safe landing sites for relief aircraft. Rescue workers also used videos from Global Hawk observations to compare before and after images of the area to identify areas of need and plan clear routes to get to those locations.A year later, U.S. Air Force Global Hawks helped survey damage and perform relief missions during the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, notably, providing views of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant without risking human crews' potential radiation exposure.Additionally, a new aircraft called Firebird can provide similar assistance. It's a medium-altitude aircraft that's designed to be inexpensive and uniquely flexible. Pilots can fly this aircraft and then quickly transform it into an un-piloted aircraft, for example, in order to stay in the air longer and to go near dangerous areas to gather information.A Heartbeat AwayWhile aircraft and satellite images such as NOAA's Search And Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) System provide overhead views, smaller drones like the popular recreational consumer drones can be used to get a closer look at the situation. Land robots, too, can get more detailed information without putting humans at risk.Some disaster relief technology isn't nearly as flashy as a robot but can be extremely effective. When a severe earthquake struck Nepal in 2015, a suitcase-sized device saved four men. The device, called FINDER, which stands for Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response, operates using a similar approach that NASA uses to observe distant planets. It sends a signal out and then deduces information about the unknown object based on how the signal changes when it bounces back. In this way, the technology identifies subtle distortions that humans can't detect, such as the bending of a signal when it encounters a galactic object. Similarly, FINDER sent a microwave signal that detected survivors' heartbeats in Nepal, even though the men were buried under about 10 feet of brick, mud, wood and other debris.Enhancing the Humanitarian Disaster Aid ToolkitRescue aid workers continue to use traditional tools such as listening devices, cameras and dogs that are trained to sniff out survivors. And over time, they're also adding new disaster relief technology to their toolkits. With each new technological improvement, lives are saved.See how the Global Hawk family is enhancing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance efforts worldwide.

Disaster Relief Technology Borrowed From Aerospace

Today, the drone industry is one of the most sophisticated in the world. But what exactly is a drone? It can be anything from a cheap remote-controlled toy to the U.S. Navy's strike fighter-sized unmanned aircraft X-47B UCAS-D—which was designed and built by Northrop Grumman and uses a software-controlled smart "brain" to autonomously conduct aerial missions.Definitions vary on what can be considered a drone, but broadly speaking, it is a device that can take an action without human intervention. This differs from simple remote control, although the importance of remote operations particularly in the early days, cannot be overlooked. It should be noted that although "drone" is a popular moniker, it's an oversimplification; it doesn't adequately capture the fact that we are also dealing with autonomous aircraft with smart software brains.Taking the above into account, what was the first "drone" and how did it evolve? Let's take a deeper look.The First DronesLet's take a look back to 1898, when Nikola Tesla used a radio-controlled motor to wow patrons at the Electrical Exhibition in Madison Square Garden by piloting a toy boat with "verbal commands," while really manipulating a controller at the same time as his shouts.This early application of radio controlled technology led to a small set of hobbyists interested in radio controlled devices. Just as those hobbyists do in their garages today, some early work led to very useful commercial devices.In 1935 one hobbyist, renowned actor Reginald Denny, managed to show the U.S. Army that his hobby could be a useful target for antiaircraft gunnery crews. By the end of decade Denny had formalized the Radioplane company and was selling the first vehicle, the OQ-1, to the Army.Since they were used primarily as targets to be shot down, thousands of the Radioplane vehicles were made in the 1940s. Some of the unassuming devices were even assembled by Marilyn Monroe, who was discovered by an army photographer sent to take pictures of the Radioplane in production.By 1952, Northrop Aircraft purchased Denny's company, which then became the Radioplane Division. This was to be the launch of Northrop Grumman's development of autonomous systems. In the decades since, the systems and technologies have expanded vehicles to be used for much more than just target practice.DevelopmentA desire to keep people away from dangerous conditions has long driven inventors to devise mechanisms that can go places and do things that people cannot. But the earliest drones — those that fit the definition of fully unmanned and automated — were unreliable by today's standards.The MGM-57 Falconer, designed in 1955, was the U.S. Army's first unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, used for short-range battlefield surveillance. There was no way to transmit images in real time, so the onboard camera film had to be recovered and processed before use. Furthermore, the Falconer could only remain airborne for half an hour.During the Vietnam War, the Ryan AQM-91 Firefly and Model 147B Lightning Bug were developed for long-range reconnaissance missions into China. Launched from other aircraft, these drones were self-guided and powered.By the late 1970s, the Aquila, the most promising drone of the time, crashed every 20 flight hours and needed 30 people to launch it.In 1977, Israel-based aerospace engineer Abraham Karem arrived in the United States. Working from his home in Los Angeles, using cheap materials, Karem set out to build a drone based on "inspired design and highly optimized and integrated subsystems." In 1980, his drone, code-named the Albatross, stayed aloft for 56 hours. Karem thought of drones as reliable long-term vehicles that should have as long of a service life as their human-piloted counterparts.Even up to the 1990s, operating crews needed be located near the vehicle to ensure radio signals made the connection. It was not until the turn of the new century that there were reports of vehicles being controlled from 7,000 miles away.These advancements occurred in part because of unmanned systems with operating times measurable in years rather than minutes, and the development of satellite monitoring technology.The Tech Stack of Modern UAVsA flying object that can be remotely piloted from anywhere in the world requires a deep technology stack, the lack of which limited the evolution of drone systems until the 1980s.With the advent of the first microprocessor in 1970, devices once the size of control systems shrunk drastically and powered the development of enabling technology for remote operations. Meanwhile, the global positioning system (GPS), a global navigation satellite system conceived in the 1960s, became fully operational in 1995 and allowed for operations around the globe.You can now view the first armed UAV in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, although the current U.S. fleet of more than 10,000 drones is employed primarily for intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance.21st-Century DronesThe technology in the drone industry have come a long way from Tesla's toy boat. Even the term "drone" has evolved to describe an array of autonomous aerial systems. Though a drone itself refers to the complete vehicle, each one employs sensors, controls and power systems in various stages of development. For instance, today's Gray Eagle uses STARLite Tactical Radar, integrated to optimize operations while also providing target signatures that aid in intelligence gathering.But radar and other systems present on nearly all unmanned systems have their limitations. Several factors including advances in airframes, power sources, and both electronic warfare and air defenses are constantly driving the need to innovate and upgrade systems. The trend towards open modular architectures allowing for better integration of manned and unmanned systems will further push technology's future. Even Moore's law is coming to an end and has helped drive advances in competing computational platforms.Neural networks and AI are becoming more capable of analyzing radar, optical and environmental data to provide onboard identification and classification of observed threats. This enables many more actions to be taken without the need for human intervention.Drone Technology Beyond DefenseBeyond threat removal, drone technology can also allow for aid to remote locations or perform routine tasks. As defense needs continue to drive technology advancements, existing technologies can be pushed to consumer markets.Already the use of auto-pilot and GPS-guided "return to home" features have opened the market. Everything from real estate listings to the opening scenes of blockbuster films are now aided by unmanned devices that can be used in everyday society (though FAA regulations still limit who can commercially pilot a device).Today, the development of self-driving cars and delivery drones are hot topics for logistics companies and retailers alike. Advances now happening in drone technology are so rapid that we'll see more innovation within the next decade than in all those years since Tesla's boat.

A Toy Plane led to Our Current Autonomous Systems

Ever since the 1962 cartoon character George Jetson zipped through the skies in his avocado-green flying car, Americans have pined for one of their own. But research and development on personal air vehicles has moved at a snail's pace, with 21st century families still rolling on wheels. Now, the U.S. Air Force says it wants 30 flying cars in its fleet in the next 10 years. Innovative technology developed through the agency's Agility Prime initiative — meant to accelerate the commercial market for advanced air mobility vehicles — will not only benefit the military but finally make citizen sky pilots possible, too. That's because aircraft developed through this program, especially electric-powered machines capable of vertical takeoff and landing (EVTOL), will be low-maintenance, affordable, sustainable, quiet and safe. On top of that, they won't require runways, meaning they can take off from and land on parking lots and driveways. "We're a great bridge market to not just get companies flight hours and build competence, but to be regulators, certifiers of all types for local and state governments," Dr. Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, told reporters during a press briefing on April 29, as Military.com reports. Agility Prime Although flying cars hint at a futuristic world shimmering in high-tech wizardry, their electric engines and computer automation offer low-cost mobility and maintenance. The Air Force recognizes that these vehicles could be used to improve security, rescue troops from battlefield, sweep disaster zones for survivors and more. The agency decided to engage with the commercial sector to reduce bureaucracy and accelerate progress. It developed Agility Prime, an acquisition program that fast-tracks the contracting process to specifically develop manned or unmanned aircraft. Agility Prime provides smaller amounts of funding and access to Air Force assets, including test ranges and safety, which encourages outside investment. The goal is to help advance aircraft that could be used for civilian purposes but are also ideal for the military. The program is interested in developing three types of aircraft: one that's able to carry three to eight people to ranges greater than 100 miles, at speeds greater than 100 mph for an hour; another that can carry one or two people more than 10 miles at speeds greater than 45 mph with flight endurance greater than 15 minutes; and a third "not necessarily designed to carry occupants" but rather cargo up to 1,320 lbs, and it can fly at least 200 miles at speeds greater than 100 mph for at least 100 minutes. The Air Force is looking for prototypes by December 17, 2020. Innovative Technology  The first demonstration of a flying car with Air Force potential occurred on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020, at Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas. Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett, Chief of Staff Charles Q. Brown Jr., Chief Master Sgt. JoAnne S. Bass and leadership from the Texas National Guard watched as Matt Chasen, founder and CEO of LIFT Aircraft, flew an 18-rotor ultralight HEXA on a four-minute flight, according to an Air Force press release. Chasen founded LIFT in 2017 and announced the HEXA a year later. Its rotors are independently powered by 18 electric motors. A triply redundant flight-control computer and multiple collision sensors keep the craft stable and safe during flight, and the craft can land reliably if up to six motors are disabled. In the event of an emergency, an autonomous ballistic parachute deploys. Owners can control it with a single, three-axis joystick and need no pilot's license to fly it. Six floats offer buoyancy for safe water landings. The HEXA could be used on the battlefield, too, as an air ambulance to rescue injured soldiers. "At LIFT, we're making flying so simple, safe and inexpensive that anyone can do it with very little skill or special training. We're truly consumerizing flying for the first time in history," Chasen said in a company press release. But LIFT isn't the only company working on flying car technology. Sabrewing Aircraft has a cargo drone named Rhaegal RG-1 that can carry a payload of up to 5,400 lbs over a distance of 1,150 miles with a cruise speed of 167 mph. Beta Technologies has a winged, fully electric VTOL named Alia, and Joby Aviation has a five-seat prototype. The latter two both meet certain requirements for Agility Prime's "Area of Interest One," including the ability carry three to eight people at least 100 miles at speeds of at least 100 mph. "We now have over fifteen of the leading aircraft manufacturers in the world applying to partner with Agility Prime, with many of them already on contract," Col. Nathan Diller, AFWERX director and Agility Prime lead said at the demonstration flight in Austin. By supporting the fast development of innovative technology around personal aircraft, civilians and military personnel will benefit. The only question left is — will the flying car fold up into the size of a suitcase, just like George Jetson's? We'll have to wait and see.

The Air Force Wants a Flying Car and That Could Be Good for Civilians

Many viable solutions for climate change will likely involve pairing advanced technology with legacy applications. For example, going driverless might be good for the planet, as autonomous vehicles such as the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system (UAS) and driverless cars produce fewer emissions than traditional manned options. In a similar vein, electric planes might make the most sense for counteracting climate change in the area of regional air travel. Electric Planes for Short Hops Vancouver-based Harbour Air plans to operate the world's first all-electric seaplane fleet, and as the Canadian Broadcasting Commission notes, Harbour Air has already conducted test flights with its electric-powered planes. Once they are certified as airworthy and ready for passenger flights, the airline plans to start using them on its regular commercial routes, which include short regional flights between Vancouver and the British Columbia capital, Victoria, for example. The airline already uses small propeller planes to connect up and down the Pacific Northwest coast, flying regularly between Seattle, Vancouver, Whistler and the Gulf Islands. The existing commercial itinerary is perfect for electrification. The world's largest electric plane flew in May of 2020 just a little further south down the coast from Vancouver, BC. The BBC reports that the nine-seater modified Cessna test plane made aviation history above a field in central Washington State, flying for 30 minutes above Grant County International Airport and becoming the first commercial airplane to be powered for takeoff and flight exclusively by electricity. Weight and Power Limit Battery-Powered Flights The reason why shorter routes are more suitable to electric planes is that they are comfortably within the range of the on-board batteries needed to power the flights. Battery-powered flight is limited by the battery power itself, and in terms of energy density, batteries fall way behind aviation fuel. This means that even if enough battery power could be placed on board a typical commercial jet liner, the jet could only fly for 1,000 km (621 miles) rather than its usual range of 15,000 km (9,320 miles). However, despite the relative lack of power and reduced range, electric flight could offer the benefits of cost savings and reduced emissions. A significant portion of global air travel is short haul, over distances suitable for electric planes, and the 30-minute modified Cessna flight cost only $6 compared to between $300 and $400 for a similar flight using conventional aviation fuel. Autonomous Handling, Higher Altitude and Longer Flights for Lower Emissions? Staying up in the air for a lot longer could also help to reduce emissions, as the MQ-4C Triton shows. Used for surveillance and reconnaissance, the MQ-4C Triton's advanced technology includes a 360-degree sensor payload that is well protected against environmental conditions frequently encountered at high altitudes and over marine environments. What goes up must come down, but keeping the vehicle in the air for longer can reduce its emissions and fuel costs, as takeoff and landing are the most fuel-hungry parts of flight, according to Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. As an autonomous aircraft system, the MQ-4C Triton has a flight duration of around 24 hours. Flying stats show that the MQ-4C Triton does differ from traditional manned flights considerably in terms of emissions. This is due to its design, which utilizes a smaller fuselage on a bigger wingspan to create better flying efficiency. Autonomous flight capabilities also help, as pre-programming a flight lets the on-board system fly with much greater efficiency than a human pilot could achieve, and at altitudes around 50,000 feet (15.24 km), where it is easier to cruise without guzzling fuel. Compared to the equivalent manned system, this UAS not only uses less fuel but also emits 34 times less carbon dioxide. One standard flight uses the equivalent of a 55,922-mile (nearly 90,000 km) car journey, while fuel consumption for its manned counterparts rockets to the equivalent of almost 2 million miles for a similar flight. Hybrid Options for Reduced Emissions Because commercial air travel requires flights over longer distances, but usually not for 24 hours at a stretch, UAS commercial flights may not be the way forward. Instead, researchers are exploring hybrid options that combine traditional fuel engines with advanced electric plane technology. For example, MIT News has reported on a hybrid electric plane concept that uses a gas turbine to create electric power for the propulsion system. In their turbo-electric concept, a gas turbine powers an electric generator, which in turn powers the propellers or fans on the airplane wings. Because the gas turbine exhaust can be contained in this system, it can be passed through an emissions control system that scrubs out harmful nitrogen oxide particles, one of the major sources of pollution from airplanes. Furthermore, airplane electrification using this approach would not add as much extra weight as batteries would. Another tactic that can help reduce emissions is replacing traditional surveillance methods that involve manned flights with the MQ-4C Triton and only calling in manned aircraft once a target is located and accurately mapped. With this approach, the gas-guzzling airplane would only need to fly out when it's necessary and wouldn't have to spend time in the air searching. While we might not be spending 24 hours on a UAS flight in the future, it's likely that we will be able to leverage electric power for certain flights, rather than relying exclusively on fossil fuels. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery in science, technology and engineering.

How Advanced Technology Is Creating New Solutions for Climate Change

Consider it a new age in manufacturing and engineering. Unlike in days past, when workers shaped simple tools out of a given material, be it stone, wood or steel, today marks a revolution in manufacturing. Engineers can now tweak complex materials at the microscopic level so they perform to their specifications. "It's kind of turning the problem on its head. We can tailor-make any material to solve the problem," said Northrop Grumman's Luke Sweatlock, director of research for Materials and Devices, Basic Research. "You can apply these principles on the atomic and molecular scales, and you can create things that have really surprising and unique properties." For instance, imagine a carefully shaped piece of glass, such as a lens. Due to the laws of physics, the light entering that lens always bends in a way that is expected, and atoms polarize the light in a certain way. However, scientists like Sweatlock and his team members can make a lens that is shaped in another manner, at the smallest level imaginable, so that it bends light in a different way. "Now you're kind of back to the drawing board," said Sweatlock, who has spent the last decade working at Northrop Grumman. "What can you do with this material that's never been available before?" In the realms of aerospace and consumer products, engineered materials can have powerful applications when it comes to thermal properties. If a device consumes power, be it a spacecraft engine or a cell phone battery, it generates heat. Often such heat limits the device's performance. On Earth, that may not be a huge deal, but in space, there is no convection, and "that's a huge problem," Sweatlock explains. "There is still a lot of room for engineering improvement." That's where Jesse Tice comes in. Tice, principal scientist and Nanomaterials Group lead, is an eight-year veteran of Northrop Grumman who works in the nanometer regime — for comparison, a human hair measures 10 to 100 micrometers; Tice and his teammates work on a scale 10,000 to 100,000 times smaller than that. "One of my first projects was on thermal transport," Tice said. In the laboratory, Tice uses vertically aligned nanowire arrays to improve conductivity and break down thermal bottlenecks between microelectronic systems. These systems are a series of tiny integrated circuits that enable communications between satellites and Earth-based stations, among other applications. "[Copper nanowires] are 10 times more efficient than the current practice," he said. "This is for the next generation of microelectronics, which are extremely high power." Tice and his teammates don't stop with thermal innovations. They also delve into additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing. Instead of printing standard color inks like you might on a device at home, they print gold and other phase-changing inks that end up as radiofrequency filters, wave guides, antennas and the like. "We can manufacture them extremely quickly," Tice said. "We're able to get improved or enhanced performance over traditional flat components with our fully 3-D printed approach." Finally, he is looking into thin materials such as the semi-metal graphene, which is just one atom thick. Team members can take these materials and stack one on top of the other to create new functionalities, as well as image cross-sections to view one atom at a time. By stacking graphene on a new material known as gallium oxide, Tice said, the team demonstrated a new record high breakdown voltage for gallium oxide. This fundamental advancement could help develop new power converters for grid-scale electric power or advanced components that replace gallium nitride in high-performance microelectronic applications. The report, appearing in January 2018 in Applied Physics Letters, earned the team kudos in the scientific community. "We've been making some really good progress," Tice said. All this may sound more like science fiction than science fact, but it's happening at Northrop Grumman in places like Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach, Calif., and in Bethpage, N.Y. Indeed, thanks to the efforts of the company's scientists, devices like the tricorder in TV's "Star Trek" could become reality. The tricorder was used to scout unfamiliar territory like alien worlds, examine living beings and record and analyze data. A trio of doctors last year introduced a real-life tricorder for medical applications. "How do we develop new design principles that allow us to break rules in a constructive way?" Sweatlock asks. "In the future, we're going to leverage the quantum realm. The next step is tinkering with the laws of quantum mechanics." Historically, aerospace composites, alloys and coatings have brought success to companies like Northrop Grumman. With these new breakthroughs, the sky is definitely the limit. Sweatlock sees collaboration among his peers in the labs as a key to that success. "What really makes it special is the interdisciplinary crosstalk that can happen in the labs," he said. "We can walk down the hall here and say, 'Here is what we discovered,' and our counterparts can say, 'Here are the challenges.' That's what makes it all come together." "We see and work with colleagues who are at the leading edge," Tice said. "Eventually that leads to world-discriminating technologies." Concluded Sweatlock, "There's just no limit to what you can do by engineering materials from the ground up."

Scientists Engineer Materials from the Atom Up

 Key Takeaways
 
 
 

    Biomimicry is the study of systems in nature to find solutions in human design.
    Aviation design can benefit from biomimicry — studying birds can help us make aircraft flight and design more efficient.
    AI can help tackle and refine the huge data sets generated by biomimicry research, building algorithms to mimic bird flight or analyzing wing shape, for example.

 
 
 
Who hasn't stared up at a hawk or vulture circling lazily in the sky and wondered how they stay aloft so long? Researchers are now able to tackle this question more systematically using biomimicry, the process of mirroring nature's systems to solve complex human problems.
 
Their goal is to develop artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that will allow gliders to mimic the flight behavior and endurance of birds and understand wing structural changes that facilitate silent flight, among other projects. Soon, AI in aviation will transform the types of missions that gliders perform and substantially reduce noise in flight.
 
 
 
Flying Like Birds
 
 
 
AI and biomimicry are already helping aviation researchers understand how gliders can function more efficiently. Gautam Reddy, a graduate student in physics, and a team of his colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, described their biomimicry research in a 2018 article in Nature.
 
 
 
The team equipped a two-meter-wingspan, radio-controlled glider with a flight controller and instruments that could measure vertical wind accelerations along the length of the glider and across its wings. Their working theory was that birds use similar sensory information to identify and navigate thermals.
 
 
 
Between 2015 and 2017, they conducted more than 500 flights near Poway, California, each one lasting 20 to 30 minutes. The aim was to train the glider in a concept called "reinforcement" to navigate thermals autonomously. They used their measurements to build a simple algorithm that would steer the glider toward zones of higher lift.
 
 
 
Another study published in the Flow, Turbulence and Combustion journal, also looked at soaring flight, studying behavior in white storks for clues to how the birds stay aloft so effortlessly. The researchers took data observed during stork flight and created a biomimetic computational model that analyzed the way the wing tip changed shape during flight. The study also looked closely at the airflow features around the wing tip feathers during flight. Similar work in pigeons could also aid wing design. For example, Popular Mechanics points to PigeonBot: a highly sophisticated bird-like robot that researchers are using to study how pigeons change the shape of their wings during flight to gain efficiency.
 
 
 
Taming Unpredictability
 
 
 
Though much valuable information can be gleaned from the concept of biomimicry, field studies can be problematic. Atmospheric conditions vary so much hour to hour and day to day, even in the same location, that building a robust AI algorithm for glider aviation using field measurements alone is quite challenging.
 
 
 
"AI algorithms require a lot of data," Reddy said. "One way to add fidelity to the algorithm would be to use numerical simulation and a process called model-based learning."
 
 
 
This model-based approach, which his team did not use, would involve "flying" a simulated glider repeatedly through a simulated atmospheric environment containing realistic thermals, convective currents and turbulence. Atmospheric data and the glider's response to those conditions could be collected on each simulated flight and then used to systematically update and refine the AI algorithm.
 
 
 
A better strategy, Reddy proposes, would be to extract visual and other sensor information from gliders.
 
 
 
"State-of-the-art gliders actually have better aerodynamic properties than birds," he said. "We can also use instruments to gather higher accuracy measurements of temperature, wind velocity, humidity, barometric pressure and other relevant data."
 
 
 
New Rules of Engagement
 
 
 
AI in aviation certainly offers tantalizing prospects.
 
 
 
"If we can come up with a glider that's as efficient as a bird, it could travel across continents," said Reddy. "That capability could be extremely useful for surveillance or remote sensing missions." The one limitation, he admitted, is that gliders rely on thermals, which are normally present during daylight hours only.
 
 
 
AI-controlled gliders could be a perfect complement to high-altitude surveillance systems, such as the U.S. Air Force's Global Hawk unmanned aircraft.
 
 
 
"Gliders are very small, unpowered and virtually silent," said Reddy. "So, they would not need to fly at high altitude. I think they could provide our military commanders with some very interesting options."
 
 
 
AI in the Cockpit and Beyond
 
 
 
Reddy suggests we try out AI as a navigational aid for pilots to enhance their abilities in the air.
 
 
 
"Pilots would still fly as before," he said, "but would use the AI algorithm to suggest the fastest, most efficient route to their destinations, taking advantage of the fastest-flowing streets (thermals) along the route."
 
 
 
AI and biomimicry could also aid other areas of in-flight performance, creating aircraft that fly silently, similar to an owl swooping on its prey. According to Popular Mechanics, owls can inspire quieter aircraft and turbine blades. Analysis of the wing's trailing edge has found that the orientation of the feathers changes the way the air flows as the owl flies.
 
 
 
In a similar way, hummingbird flight dynamics could help drone flight. For example, Penn State University describes novel modeling that's allowing researchers to simulate hummingbird flight, and Science Daily notes that the data from these studies could refine flying robots.
 
 
 
And it's not just birds. The Biomimicry Institute describes AI coupled with slime mold growth can revolutionize materials design. Along with studying bone growth, researchers are developing new approaches that could make aircraft lighter and use less fuel. Combining generative design, AI and 3D printing can even help us create lightweight components, such as cabin partitions that are strong but use less raw material.
 
These are just a few examples of how looking to AI and ecosystems can transform aviation systems. It's clear the future holds some exciting advancements in technology still to come, and nature may play a pivotal role in realizing those innovations.
 
 
 
Northrop Grumman is a leader in the development of autonomous aerial reconnaissance systems. If you'd like to learn more about what we do, check out our work in AI and machine learning.
 
 
 

AI in Aviation Gets a Lift From Biomimicry

 Enable targeting cookies to view this content.        When you're up in the sky in a big metal machine, it's easy to imagine all the things that could go wrong, but science can bust common airplane myths. More than a century after the Wright Brothers invented a flying machine, aviation technology is more sophisticated than you might realize. Even aviation experts aren't immune to fears about flying, but a few solid airplane facts can help alleviate those fears.       Chris Leeper, Civil Aviation program manager at Northrop Grumman, suggested, "For folks who suffer a fear of flying, myself included, just remember this statistic: The odds of you being involved in an accident while flying are one in 11,000,000, whereas the odds of you being involved in an accident while driving are one in 200!" Here are a few common airplane myths, debunked.       Does the Aurora Borealis Affect Flights?        The natural light show of auroras, such as the northern and southern lights, happens when Earth's magnetic field is disturbed by energetic particles from the sun. According to NASA, when the particles in solar winds or coronal mass ejections reach Earth, they can trigger reactions in the upper atmosphere where oxygen and nitrogen molecules release photons of light. So, could this disturbance mess with a plane's sensitive electronics?       Steve Murphy, program manager within the Navigation and Positioning Systems business unit, explains that even though the amount of energy involved can be large, auroras do not pose a threat to an airplane's electronic (avionics) and navigation systems, which are protected from electromagnetic interference (EMI).       He said, "An aurora can cause static on communication systems, but does not affect navigation and GPS systems aboard a plane. Commercial flights often fly near auroras, near the poles, without problems."       Regardless of auroras, avionics are already protected from EMI that could be caused by the plane's own components. Engineers use various methods to protect avionics from interference. An example is shielding, which involves "surrounding electronics and cables with conductive or magnetic materials to guard against incoming or outgoing emissions of electromagnetic frequencies," according to Tech Target.       What If You Don't Switch Your Phone to Airplane Mode?        In the early days of cell phones, there was concern that their mobile frequencies could cause problems for avionics and ground communications networks. This worry has remained one of today's prevalent flight myths. Aviation technology has improved since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) first banned in-flight phone calls in 1991, but U.S. airlines still require passengers to switch their personal devices to airplane mode. According to Ars Technica, the FCC has considered lifting the ban, but even though modern cell phones are technically safe to use on planes, there are no plans to allow in-flight cell phone calls.       Murphy explained that the transmissions from cell phones are unlikely to cause problems with the navigation system, the GPS receivers or other avionics aboard the plane, because — just like with the aurora scenario — the components are already built with EMI protections.        "There is some thought that phones transmitting on a plane could affect cell towers on the ground," he said. "It may be that the airlines are trying to cut down of the chatter and noise that would occur if everyone on the plane was talking on their phone. Some groups are trying to get the airlines to change the rules to allow cell calls during flight."       If passengers take their phones off airplane mode (therefore enabling the transmitter), it won't make the plane crash, but it could annoy the pilots and air traffic controllers.        "This annoyance is due to the potential noise you may be inducing into the radio transmissions," Leeper said. "If you've ever had your phone near an audio system, you may have heard the 'ticking' sound that is created due to the parasitic demodulation."       This noise could make it into the radio transmissions between the pilots and air traffic controllers. If that's the case, then it seems a bit strange that passengers are still allowed to use personal electronic devices to watch videos and send email. It turns out there is a good reason why passengers are allowed to use Wi-Fi, but not to make phone calls.       According to Leeper, "The phone's radio emissions are much stronger (~8W) versus the Wi-Fi signal (~100mW)."       Is Flying Through Lightning Dangerous?        One of the scariest airplane facts is that lightning strikes are a daily occurrence on commercial planes worldwide, according to Time. The good news is that planes are designed to withstand the inevitable storm. In addition to standard EMI protection, a plane's electrical components and fuel tanks are also grounded to prevent electrical arcs. Furthermore, the body of the plane is effectively a container that blocks electromagnetic fields (a Faraday cage).       When lightning hits a plane, it might cause some minor structural damage. But a commercial plane hasn't crashed in the United States as a result of a lightning strike since 1967, according to Scientific American. Modern commercial aircraft designs have incorporated many precautions that put safety first.       "The key safety measure is designing the aircraft body to allow for energy dissipation and proper grounding. We want to prevent the formation of electric arcs, which could ignite vapors in the fuel tanks or knock out sensitive flight management systems," Leeper explained. "Airframes have incorporated metal strips connecting all the structural features of the airframe, which work to create a Faraday cage and block electric charge from passing through the airframe."       Now that these three common airplane myths have been debunked, feel free to book that trip you've been wanting to go on.    

Common Airplane Myths, Debunked by Science

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, airplanes account for approximately 12% of U.S. transportation emissions and about 3% of the nation's total greenhouse gas production. In 2018, aviation contributed 2.4% of human-generated CO2 emissions worldwide. In the interest of reversing climate change, then, what can be done to reduce air pollution by replacing jet-fuel burning aircraft with low- or zero-emission electric airplanes? What new technologies will be needed to effect this change and how long might it take?       Getting Off the Ground       The idea of electric airplanes is not new.       In October 1973, a 23-year-old Austrian aircraft manufacturer, Heino Brditschka, became the first person to fly an electric plane, a modified version of an HB-2 power glider. The Swiss-built, solar and electric-powered Solar Impulse II aircraft circumnavigated the globe over the course of 16 months in 2015-16. And since 2010, aircraft manufacturer Airbus has developed and flown a series of all-electric demonstrator aircraft.       But the laws of physics remain a daunting challenge to all who take on this new, cleaner, quieter form of aviation.       "For an electric airplane, the top three priorities are weight, weight and weight," said Cory Combs, co-founder and chief technology officer of Los Angeles-based Ampaire, Inc. "It has to spend a lot of its energy just keeping itself in the air."       The fundamental challenge, he explained, is that an electric plane has to carry enough battery power to allow it to take off carrying a nominal payload of passengers or cargo, fly at a reasonable speed, then travel a sufficient distance, notionally 100 miles, to make it commercially viable. If its battery packs become too large or too heavy, the aircraft will have a limited ability to carry passengers and cargo.       This energy requirement is exacerbated, Combs added, by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)'s requirement that all aircraft must carry at least 45 minutes of reserve fuel, enough to divert to another airport or go around for another landing attempt.       Making Contact With Reality       "Lithium (Li) ion batteries are the current state-of-the-art stored energy technology for aviation," said Dr. Ajay Misra, deputy director, Research and Engineering Directorate, NASA's Glenn Research Center, "the same type of technology used in cells phones and electric cars."       For aviation, Misra added, the relevant measure of battery suitability is called pack specific energy, also referred to as pack gravimetric energy density. A pack contains thousands of battery cells. The units of pack specific energy are watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg).       According to Misra, the pack specific energy of the most commonly used Li-ion batteries today is about 150 to 170 Wh/kg. By contrast, the specific energy of jet fuel is nearly 12,000 Wh/kg, or about 70 to 80 times more energy dense than Li-ion batteries.       Putting Propulsion First        According to Roei Ganzarski, CEO of magniX, a Redmond, Washington producer of electric motors, however, electric aviation is facing a chicken/egg situation.       "You're not going to get batteries for aviation unless there's an electric airplane that needs them," he explained. "And no one is going to design and build an electric plane unless there's an electric propulsion system that can power the plane."       That's why Ganzarski believes that electric propulsion will drive the so-called third revolution in aviation, just as the automotive-derived piston engine used by the Wright Flyer launched the first revolution, and the advent of the jet engine ushered in the second.       To support this idea, magniX is working with Vancouver, B.C.- based Harbour Air, a regional airline, to retrofit several types of seaplanes with electric propulsion systems. In Dec. 2019, the two companies conducted first flight of the world's first fully-electric commercial aircraft, a five-passenger de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver propelled by magniX's Magni500 560kW system.       Navigating the Certification Process       In coming months, magniX will be seeking FAA certification of its Magni500 motor while Harbour Air hopes to obtain certification for the DHC-2 Beaver. Eventually, the air charter company hopes to electrify its entire fleet of approximately 40 seaplanes.       Current FAA regulations, adopted in 2017, allow certification of electric airplanes weighing 19,000 pounds or less, with 19 or fewer passenger seats.       As Ganzarski sees it, retrofitting existing, previously-certified aircraft with new electric propulsion systems is a faster, less expensive way to reduce air pollution through electric aviation than building electric airplanes from scratch.       "The FAA already knows the de Havilland Beaver," he said. "There's nothing 'new' about this aircraft except now it will be electrically powered."       The downside of electrifying older seaplanes, Ganzarski admits, is that they won't have the range of the original aircraft, which were designed with large, heavy engines on the front. Traditional seaplanes can also carry high-energy-density fuel in their wings and don't need to make room for lots of heavy batteries.       magniX's second pathway into the electric airplane market, explained Ganzarski, is to provide electric motors to aircraft OEMs such as Israel-based Eviation Aircraft. Eviation is developing a new, all-electric commuter jet called Alice from scratch. The aerodynamic, nine-passenger jet, which was designed to take full advantage of its magni250 electric motors, has an advertised range of 540 nautical miles, or about 620 statute miles.       The tradeoff for customers hoping to obtain a newer, higher performance electric airplane, Ganzarksi advised, is that such planes will come with longer FAA certification times and higher price tags than retrofits.       Giving Wings to Hybrid Electric        Ampaire's solution to the weight/range dilemma of electric airplanes is what they call a parallel hybrid-electric propulsion system. It includes both a conventional internal combustion engine and an electric motor with a scalable battery pack.       Compared to conventional, jet-fuel burning aircraft, explains Combs, this approach promises to reduce fuel consumption (50 to 70%), maintenance costs (about 25%), air pollution and takeoff noise.       "We believe that the dramatic drop in operating costs and noise levels associated with hybrid-electric propulsion could also lead to the revitalization of regional air travel," he said. Using hybrid-electric aircraft, he calculates, airlines could provide less expensive and more frequent passenger and cargo services between smaller, regional airports.       As an example, Combs points to Ampaire's first commercial product, the Electric EEL, a six-seat Cessna 337 Skymaster retrofitted with the company's hybrid-electric system. The Electric Eel flew for the first time in May 2019. In 2020, Ampaire plans to conduct flight demonstrations of the EEL in Hawaii in collaboration with Mokulele Airlines by tracing a 31-mile commercial route currently flown on Maui by the regional carrier. Ampaire hopes to get FAA certification for the EEL in 2021.       Meeting Safety, Environmental Goals       Hybrid-electric airplanes, emphasized Combs, will meet the performance, safety and environmental expectations of commercial air travelers.       "Typically, we use battery power for taxi, a combination of engine power and battery power for takeoff (to match takeoff performance of current aircraft), and then when we've reached sufficient altitude, we can idle the fuel engine and fly electric," he said. "So for short hop routes, we can essentially fly all electric."       For longer routes, Combs added, hybrid-electric aircraft share power between the engine and the electric motor; longer routes require more engine power and less electric power but the battery size remains the same.       "The goal is to always use the battery because that's the cheapest, most efficient, and most environmentally friendly form of power," he said. "The fuel engine serves as your emergency reserve or provides power for that extra go-around."       In addition to its work on the Electric EEL, Ampaire is also retrofitting nine- and 19-seat passenger aircraft with hybrid-electric propulsion systems       Facing the Anode Ahead       For the foreseeable future, explains NASA's Misra, Li-ion batteries will remain the go-to stored energy technology for electric airplanes.       "With incremental increases in the chemistry of the Li-ion battery, its pack specific energy could rise another 20 to 30 percent, reaching perhaps 200-220 Wh/kg," he said. "More advanced battery chemistries, such as those using silicon or lithium metal anodes (vs the graphite anode used by most Li-ion batteries today) may be able to reach 300, even 400 Wh/kg, if we are lucky."       These specific energy levels, he believes, could enable introduction of all-electric regional jets capable of carrying 10 to 20 passengers, or slightly larger (50 to 70 passenger) jets powered by hybrid-electric propulsion systems.       Training the Future       Centennial, Colorado-based Bye Aerospace has taken a different approach to matching the maturity of battery technology to the needs of the general aviation markets. The company is developing a two-seat, Li-ion-powered training aircraft called the eFlyer 2.       "Over the next 20 years, the airline industry expects a five-fold increase in the demand for commercial pilots from the 155,000 such pilots flying today," explained Bye Aerospace founder and CEO George E. Bye. "We're meeting this need by developing a trainer aircraft that's five times less expensive to operate than two-seat trainers in service today. And it produces no air pollution and no noise using modern technology."       The eFlyer 2's lower operating cost is particularly important for aspiring pilots, he added, because the cost of becoming a pilot today rivals that of becoming a doctor or lawyer.       The flight qualities and endurance of the eFlyer 2 (about 3 hours), Bye claimed, also line up well with the flight training syllabus and the learning capabilities of most people.       "New pilots mostly do takeoffs, landings and perhaps a few maneuvers recommended by their instructor," he said. "Research has shown that after about an hour, maybe a little bit more, their ability to learn is greatly diminished. We believe that the eFlyer 2 and its electric propulsion technology are a great match for that learning curve."       Bye Aerospace is also developing several four-seat versions of the eFlyer, known as the eFlyer 4 and the eFlyer X respectively, added Bye.       Plugging Away       So how soon can we expect electric airplanes to become a ubiquitous part of our lives, and to begin turning the tide on climate change?       "Within 10 years, we will likely see hybrid-electric regional jets capable of flying 500 miles," projected Misra. "Larger, all-electric passenger jets like the 737, however, are not likely before 2040 as significant advances in battery technology will be required."       If you're ready to give wings to your career with 21st century technologies, check out the latest job opportunities at www.ngc.com/careers.    

Electric Airplanes Promise Cleaner, Quieter Regional Air Travel

Key Takeaways  Now widely-used, GPS systems were first developed for precision military navigation. Digital imaging technologies developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were used to create modern CAT scanners. More than 2,000 "spinoff" products have been developed using NASA data — but they don't include Tang or Velcro.The Cold War that followed World War II as the United States and the Soviet Union competed for global dominance changed the world forever, and the technology from the space race continues to influence everyday life. That race began in earnest in the 1950s as both nations feverishly developed nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to carry them, according to Air Force Global Strike. The resulting advancements in rocket technology enabled the early exploration of space, leading up to the Soviet Union successfully orbiting the first artificial satellite in 1957 and putting the first human in orbit in 1961. The competition peaked when the United States successfully landed the first humans on the moon in 1969. The legacy of the Cold War and the early space race is not just about global tension and conflict: It also yielded the birth of the modern technological age.The 50th Anniversary of ApolloWith the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 and subsequent lunar missions, many events and activities were planned around the United States, including a gala hosted by NASA at the Kennedy Space Center in July 2019. The film First Man tells the story of Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong at a very personal level. We can now take a look back and see how the technological know-how required to support the space race essentially built the modern world as we know it today. Life would be unimaginable without these many advancements that we now take for granted.How Space Has ChangedSpace is a different place than it was before the Cold War. For one thing, the Earth is now surrounded by a vast network of satellites, which provide continuous broadband communications and high-definition television, data used for weather reporting, navigation and positioning, and more. This is in addition to the specialized spacecraft that support scientific and military objectives. We also maintain a continuous human presence in space on board the International Space Station, in partnership with a number of countries.Space Technology in Everyday LifeHow has space technology helped us down here on Earth? Here is just a sampling of the many "spinoff" technologies, as NASA refers to them, resulting from space research and development that we now use in everyday life.The global positioning system (GPS) was originally developed by the military for precision navigation and weapon targeting purposes. The GPS developers probably did not foresee how this technology would transform almost every industry, as well as day-to-day life, on a global scale. Using maps and travel atlases and stopping to ask for directions are now largely anachronisms. GPS has enabled ride-hailing services, as well as package tracking and delivery. It has improved our fitness by tracking our workouts and our safety by quickly providing our location in emergency situations. GPS will be there in the future to facilitate emerging technologies such as self-driving cars and package deliveries by drone.Infrared ear thermometers — a NASA-derived advancement — measure the amount of energy emitted by the eardrum in the same way the temperature of stars and planets is measured, using infrared astronomy technology. Artificial limbs have drastically improved using advanced space program shock absorbing materials and robotics. Deep space exploration missions depend on excellent digital image processing technology developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL adapted this technology to help create modern CAT scanners and radiography. The list of technology from the space race goes on. Consumer products like wireless headsets, LED lighting, portable cordless vacuums, freeze-dried foods, memory foam, scratch-resistant eyeglass lenses and many other familiar products have all benefited from space technology research and development. Modern laptop computers are direct descendants of The Shuttle Portable Onboard Computer (SPOC), which was developed in the early 1980s for the space shuttle program.Keeping It SafeTechnology from the space race has also been applied to directly improve public safety and reduce the risk of accident and injury. Anti-icing systems allow aircraft to safely fly in cold weather. Safety grooving, which first was used to reduce aircraft accidents on wet runways, is now also used on our roadways to prevent car accidents. Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors were first developed for the NASA Skylab program in the 1970s. Modern firefighting equipment widely used throughout the United States is based on NASA-developed lightweight fireproof materials.One of the most important spinoff technologies is in the area of food safety. NASA was faced with the problem of feeding astronauts in confined environments under weightless conditions. They also could not tolerate potentially disastrous crumbs, bacteria or toxins. NASA teamed with the Pillsbury Company to develop the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) concept. HACCP is designed to prevent food safety problems during production, rather than catching them after they have occurred. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has used HACCP guidelines for the safe handling of seafood, juice and dairy products since the early 1990s.Spin It OffFor more than half a century, the NASA Technology Transfer Program has provided private industry with a connection to its vast resources to support commercial product improvement development. To date, NASA says that about 2,000 "spinoff" commercial products have been successfully developed in many fields. But, despite what you might have heard, NASA didn't invent Tang, Velcro or Teflon frying pans.NASA continues to push the boundaries of technology on advanced programs such as the James Webb Space Telescope. JWST is being developed in collaboration with an innovative team of institutional, academic and industry partners. One can't help but wonder what amazing new spinoffs await us.From making space history to exploring new frontiers, see how Northrop Grumman is expanding human horizons. 

How Technology From the Space Race Changed the World

Advances in stealth technology uncloak career opportunities for engineers... and other creative problem solvers.   For the past 40 years, this technology and related tactics have been a critical part of modern air warfare. They have allowed low observability (LO) aircraft to penetrate enemy territory undetected and conduct their missions successfully.   According to a recently published report by the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute, stealth technology will remain central to aircraft survivability in combat threat environments for the foreseeable future. Not surprisingly, U.S. adversaries remain as determined to detect our stealth platforms as we are to elude detection. To wit, enemy development of (1) more sensitive, longer range radars; (2) advanced digital signal processing (that speeds communications between ground radar systems and surface-to-air (SAM) sites or airborne interceptors; (3) more lethal, more mobile SAMS; (4) more advanced fighters carrying more advanced radar and longer range missiles; and (5) advances in command and control networking processes, are potentially putting U.S. stealth aircraft, their pilots and their missions at risk.   Against this backdrop, opportunities for engineers — and other types of creative problem solvers — to participate in this perennial game of stealth "cat and mouse" remain stronger than ever. Especially if they love solving hard problems — and not giving up.    Historically, stealth technology — the science of minimizing a stealth aircraft's radar cross section and its electromagnetic signature — has been the domain of engineers well trained in aircraft design and electromagnetic theory. But in today's stealth-focused labs, you'll find people trained in a broader, more diverse set of disciplines — from electrical, mechanical and aeronautical engineering to materials and data sciences.   "The most successful survivability engineers we've hired in recent years have had degrees in multiple disciplines," explains Elizabeth San Miguel, assistant manager of technology development for system survivability, Northrop Grumman. "Being able to understand multiple disciplines and how they affect each other in this context is an extremely valuable skill."   But a good education is just the beginning. "We're looking for people who are curious and innovative, people who like to solve problems, and who are smart enough — and observant enough — to recognize unexpected results," says John Ireland, director of survivability technology application, Northrop Grumman. Breakthroughs often occur, he adds, when engineers "stumble upon" an unanticipated result, but won't let go of it until they completely understand it.   Today's game of stealth is relentless and evolving, and playing out in multiple domains — air, ground, and space. Survivable platforms often operate as part of a broader network of air and space assets, so simply minimizing the radar cross section of a platform does not reflect the true complexity of the stealth equation.   "There are several levels to any stealth problem — the system level, the platform level, and the technology level," explains Doug Young, vice president and deputy program manager for strike, Northrop Grumman. "To the extent that engineers can navigate comfortably among those environments, they will be very successful."   But elegant engineering solutions alone won't guarantee mission success for LO platforms.   "As we design new systems, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of our adversary," says San Miguel. "As fast as we think of something new, we're also thinking of a countermeasure for it, trying to psyche out how someone with different objectives might try to attack us. That's the inherent cat and mouse game of warfare."   The most successful LO engineers in the future, claims Young, will be those who can suspend disbelief, start with a clean mental sheet, and remove from their thinking any perceptions of the past that might constrain their view of what's possible.   "Don't accept anything you already know as being required or the right answer," he advises. "If you want to create a new possibility, you have to have a future that is empty and available to accept that possibility."   Regardless of how stealth technologies and tactics evolve, one thing remains certain, declares Ireland. "Stealthy airplanes are sexy. Working in this field gives you a chance to be around things that few other people know about, and to affect the design of a truly unique platform. When that aircraft is produced, you'll be able to say, 'I did that, and I know how I made it better."

Wanna Make Stuff Disappear? Learn How Stealth Technology Is Changing the Game

Who among us hasn't stared up at a hawk or a vulture circling lazily in the sky and wondered how they stay aloft so long? Or wondered how sky-darkening flocks of migrating birds can travel thousands of miles so quickly and so effortlessly? Researchers are now able to tackle these questions more systematically using biomimicry, the process of imitating nature's systems to solve complex human problems. Their goal is to develop an artificial intelligence algorithm that will allow gliders — either piloted or autonomous sailplanes — to mimic the flight behavior and endurance of birds. Soon, AI in aviation will transform the types of missions that gliders perform. Gliding Like Birds Popular Mechanics has documented the fact that birds use updrafts (zones of rising air created by topographical features such as mountains and cliffs) and thermals (rising columns of warm air) to stay aloft for extended periods of time. How they identify and navigate these zones of rising air — which form, disintegrate and shift constantly in three-dimensional space — is not well understood. Experienced glider pilots typically use visual cues from lofty cumulus clouds (often fueled by thermals) and warmer, darker areas of terrain to discover the presence of thermals. Field Training Gautam Reddy, a graduate student in physics, and a team of his colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, have studied these questions and reported their findings in a recent issue of Nature magazine. They equipped a two-meter-wingspan, radio-controlled glider with a flight controller and instruments that could measure vertical wind accelerations along the length of the glider and across its wings. Their working theory was that birds use similar sensory information to identify and navigate thermals. Between 2015 and 2017, they conducted more than 500 flights near Poway, Calif., each one lasting 20 to 30 minutes. The goal was to train the glider in a concept called "reinforcement" to navigate thermals autonomously. They used their measurements to build a simple algorithm that would steer the glider toward zones of higher lift. Taming Unpredictability Unfortunately, explained Reddy, atmospheric conditions vary so much hour to hour and day to day, even in the same location, that building a robust AI algorithm for glider aviation using field measurements alone is quite challenging. "AI algorithms require a lot of data," he said. "One way to add fidelity to the algorithm would be to use numerical simulation and a process called model-based learning." This approach, which his team did not use, would involve "flying" a simulated glider repeatedly through a simulated atmospheric environment containing realistic thermals, convective currents and turbulence. Atmospheric data and the glider's response to those conditions could be collected on each simulated flight, then used to systematically update and refine the AI algorithm. Reddy is not sure, however, if biomimicry or trying to learn from birds is the best approach for building an effective AI algorithm for gliders. "We see birds navigating thermals, but we're really not sure what they are sensing or feeling as they fly," he said. Data From Gliders A better strategy, Reddy proposes, would be to extract visual and other sensor information from gliders themselves. "State-of-the-art gliders actually have better aerodynamic properties than birds," he said. "We can also use instruments to gather higher accuracy measurements of temperature, wind velocity, humidity, barometric pressure and other relevant data." AI in the Cockpit Before turning glider controls over to AI algorithms, however, Reddy suggests that we first try out AI as a navigational aid for pilots, the same way we use Google Maps today while driving. "A pilot would still fly his sailplane as before," he said, "but he would use the AI algorithm to suggest the fastest, most efficient route to his destination, taking advantage of the fastest-flowing streets (thermals) along the route." New Rules of Engagement AI in aviation offers some tantalizing prospects. "If we can come up with a glider that's as efficient as a bird, it could travel across continents," said Reddy. "That capability could be extremely useful for surveillance or remote sensing missions." The one limitation, he admitted, is that gliders rely on thermals, which are normally present during daylight hours only. Nonetheless, AI-controlled gliders could be a perfect complement to high-altitude surveillance systems such as the U.S. Air Force's Global Hawk unmanned aircraft. "Gliders are very small, unpowered and virtually silent," said Reddy. "So they would not need to fly at high altitude. I think they could provide our military commanders with some very interesting options." Northrop Grumman is a leader in the development of autonomous aerial reconnaissance systems. If you'd like to explore opportunities to help your career soar, check out our Careers page. 

Biomimicry Gives a Lift to AI in Aviation

Fritz von Opel, nicknamed Rocket Fritz, is known for his experiments and adventures with rocket planes, rocket-powered automobiles and motorcycles. This year, we celebrate the 85th anniversary of Fritz von Opel's revolutionary rocket-propelled drive, which sparked the age of rockets. The story begins in 1927, when von Opel was contacted by fellow pilot and rocket plane enthusiast, Max Valier. Valier was looking for someone to support his rocket propulsion experiments, according to Jalopnik. Fritz's grandfather founded the Opel automobile company, so it might be said that a taste for speed was in his blood. Von Opel — who was always looking for new ways to go fast and gain publicity for the Opel company — agreed to collaborate with Valier. "On Instinct Alone" On April 11, 1928 — a largely forgotten benchmark date in the history of rockets — Fritz von Opel became the first known human to ride a rocket-powered car. The RAK-1 reached a top speed of about 60 miles per hour (100 kph), according to Opel. An improved model, the RAK-2, reached a top speed of 145 mph (238 kph). As Opel proudly recounts, Rocket Fritz described his handling of the vehicle as "acting on instinct alone, with uncontrollable forces raging behind me." The RAK-3 set an unmanned speed record on railroad tracks, but the RAK-4 exploded, and that was the end of Opel's experiments with rocket-powered cars. A proposed rocket motorcycle was abandoned under pressure from the authorities. Taking to the Air Meanwhile, as Jalopnik notes, Fritz von Opel and Max Valier had raised their rocket propulsion goals to the skies. Valier had already co-founded the legendary Verein fé¼r Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space Travel), a group of space enthusiasts and experimenters that included a young Wehrner von Braun. According to Popular Science, Valier foresaw the potential of rocket planes for spaceflight as early as 1924, long before he met Fritz von Opel. Valier wanted to outfit a regular plane with a rocket engine, with the hopes that it would significantly reduce intercontinental travel time. Alas, few details of von Opel's and Valier's rocket plane experiments were recorded. Strange Vehicles reported that von Opel bought a sailplane called the Ente and fitted it with rocket motors, but the aircraft exploded on its second test flight, before he had a chance to fly it. Fritz von Opel ended his rocket propulsion experiments there, and Max Valier was killed in a 1930 rocket explosion. Return of the Rocket Plane The greatest age of the rocket plane may still be ahead, as researchers continue to explore the possibility of spaceplanes that can use jet power to take off from a runway and climb through the atmosphere, then use rocket power to reach orbital speed. The challenges and potential of this technology are both enormous. The U.S. Air Force's X-planes, most famously the X-15, pioneered supersonic and hypersonic flight. Hypersonic transport — much more advanced than von Opel and Valier's inventions — could make space travel affordable and accessible for the everyday person.  Yet, when considering the history of rockets, we should not forget those days, not yet a century ago, when rocket-powered cars and motorcycles were the technology of the future.

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