NASA scientists and engineers are testing new technologies using the K9 rover in a granite quarry near Watsonville, Calif., in preparation for future missions to Mars. The demonstration will be conducted at Graniterock’s A.R. Wilson Quarry Site in Aromas, Calif. Scientists chose the quarry site for the field experiment and to test its autonomous operational capabilities in a remote, non-vegetated location.
October 30th, 2003
NASA conducting two weeks of tests at Aromas quarry The Register-Pajaronian
NASA has landed, right here. A team of scientists from NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field is conducting a two-week “shake and bake” test on its K-9 Rover Robot at Graniterock’s Wilson Quarry in Aromas. “We are pretending it’s a real mission,” said associate and principal investigator Liam Pedersen. “We want to shake down the rover to see if everything is working.”
October 27th, 2003
Invisible satellite dishes to preserve Athens skyline
Rooftop satellite receivers can look out of place with the historic surroundings of ancient cities. In the first-time participation with ESA, a Greek company is working to solve this. The project is to develop a kind of satellite receiver known as a planar array. Unlike more commonly seen parabola-shaped dishes, planar arrays pick up less interference from other satellites. Another feature is their square, flat shape.
October 20th, 2003
Powering small devices with water
Canadian scientists have developed a method of generating electricity from water for use in small devices, which could pave the way for products such as liquid-powered calculators and mobile phones.
October 20th, 2003
CMU team tackles the nuances of building a robot that ‘understands’ it is in a race over rough country Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Can you teach a robot to lean into a curve? Can a speedy robotic vehicle sense when it is about to spin out? And in a race between robots, how does one know when to pass the other? No one, or at least a select few, had contemplated such questions as of a year ago. But with the start of a $1 million, winner-take-all race across the California-Nevada desert less than 150 days away, these suddenly are questions that not only are being asked but answered.
October 20th, 2003
Light Sails to Orbit Scientific American
The first solar sail, called Cosmos 1, will go for its test flight in early 2004. The demonstration of a revolutionary way to travel to the planets and maybe even to the stars would seem to be a natural activity for NASA, which spends several million dollars every year researching advanced propulsion systems. Yet in this case, the space agency has chosen to be a bystander.
October 17th, 2003
Space Transportation with a Twist
Today’s scientists are already hard at work on new ideas for spaceflight in the future. New technology is being developed to help propel spacecraft into Earth orbit — and beyond. NASA researchers are studying ways to create more powerful and more efficient rockets. Engineers are considering things such as energy beamed from the ground, ions, and plasma as possible concepts for next-generation engines. Next to all of these super-high-tech ideas, one spaceflight possibility sounds remarkably simple — string.
October 16th, 2003
Tiny atomic battery developed at Cornell could run for decades unattended, powering sensors or machines Cornell News Service
While electronic circuits and nanomachines grow ever smaller, batteries to power them remain huge by comparison, as well as short-lived. But now Cornell University researchers have built a microscopic device that could supply power for decades to remote sensors or implantable medical devices by drawing energy from a radioactive isotope. The device converts the energy stored in the radioactive material directly into motion. It could directly move the parts of a tiny machine or could generate electricity in a form more useful for many circuits than has been possible with earlier devices. This new approach creates a high-impedance source (the factor that determines the amplitude of the current) better suited to power many types of circuits, says Amit Lal, Cornell assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.
October 16th, 2003
New Facility Will Help Protect Space Crews From Radiation
Imagine a human spacecraft crew voyaging through space. A satellite sends a warning; energetic particles are being accelerated from the sun’s corona, sending dangerous radiation toward their spacecraft, but the crew isn’t worried. Long before their journey, researchers on Earth conducted experiments to accurately measure the hazards of space radiation and developed new materials and countermeasures to protect them.
October 15th, 2003
Ion drive versus chemical rocket
This is a simple comparison to show the difference in fuel efficiency and performance between conventional chemical rocket thrusters and ion thrusters.