China’s Ambitious Space Plans: What are they and can they be achieved by 2016?
Posted by Val in Space and Satellites on December 29, 2011
Yesterday, China unveiled its space plans up to 2016. One of the most ambitious ones is to put an astronaut on the surface of the Moon. This feat hasn’t been accomplished since 1972 with Gene Cernan being the last to step off the lunar surface (Appolo 17).
What are China’s plans?
- Launch space labs and manned ships and prepare to build space stations over the next five years
- Continue exploring the moon using probes, start gathering samples of the moon’s surface, and “push forward its exploration of planets, asteroids and the sun.”
- Improve its launch vehicles, improve its communications, broadcasting and meteorological satellites and develop a global satellite navigation system, intended to rival the United States’ dominant global positioning system (GPS) network
- Use spacecraft to study the properties of black holes and begin monitoring space debris and small near-Earth celestial bodies and build a system to protect spacecraft from debris
Can China pull it off?
It is quite possible since China has been make remarkable progress in this area in recent years.
In 2003, China became the third country behind the U.S. and Russia to launch a man into space and, five years later, completed a spacewalk. Toward the end of this year, it demonstrated automated docking between its Shenzhou 8 craft and the Tiangong 1 module, which will form part of a future space laboratory.
In 2007, it launched its first lunar probe, Chang’e-1, which orbited the moon, collecting data and a complete map of the moon.
Since 2006, China’s Long March rockets have successfully launched 67 times, sending 79 spacecraft into orbit.
What does this mean for us?
Some elements of China’s program, notably the firing of a ground-based missile into one of its dead satellites four years ago, have alarmed American officials and others who say such moves could set off a race to militarize space. That the program is run by the military has made the U.S. reluctant to cooperate with China in space, even though the latter insists its program is purely for peaceful ends.
Soyuz Spacecraft Heads For International Space Station
Posted by admin in Space and Satellites on December 21, 2011
A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian, an American and a Dutchman to the International Space Station blasted off flawlessly from Russia’s launch facility in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
Mission commander Oleg Kononenko and his colleagues, American Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers are to dock with the space station on Friday.
The blastoff from the snowy launchpad in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, took place without a hitch and the spacecraft reached Earth orbit about nine minutes later. Video from inside the craft showed the three crew members gripping each others’ hands in celebration as the final stage of the booster rocket separated.
The three aboard the Russian spacecraft will join three others already on the ISS, NASA’s Dan Burbank and Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin. The six are to work together on the station until March.
The launch came amid a period of trouble for Russia’s space program, which provides the only way for crew to reach the space station since the United States retired its space shuttle program in July.
The launch of an unmanned supply ship for the space station failed in August and the ship crashed in a Siberian forest. The Soyuz rocket carrying that craft was the same type used to send up Russian manned spacecraft, and the crash prompted officials to postpone the next manned launch while the rockets were examined for flaws. The delayed mission eventually took place on Nov. 14.
Just five days before that launch, Russia sent up its ambitious Phobos-Ground unmanned probe, which was to go to the Phobos moon of Mars, take soil samples and return them to Earth. But engineers lost contact with the ship and were unable to propel it out of Earth orbit and toward Mars. The craft is now expected to fall to Earth in mid-January.
Last December, Russia lost three navigation satellites when a rocket carrying them failed to reach orbit. A military satellite was lost in February, and the launch of the Express-AM4, described by officials as Russia’s most powerful telecommunications satellite, went awry in August.
The New Year is almost Here, Are You Resolved to Learn Next Year?
Posted by admin in Continuing Education and Seminar Marketing on December 21, 2011
What Resolutions Have You Made?Whether you are a busy engineer, a technical expert or a project manager, you can enhance your understanding of complex systems in a short time. You will become aware of the basic vocabulary essential to interact meaningfully with your colleagues. If you or your team is in need of more technical training, then boost your career with the knowledge needed to provide better, faster, and cheaper solutions for sophisticated DoD and NASA systems.
Why not take a short course instead? ATI short courses are less than a week long and are designed to help you keep your professional knowledge up-to-date. Our courses provide a practical overview of space and defense technologies which provide a strong foundation for understanding the issues that must be confronted in the use, regulation and development of complex systems.
Course Outline, Samplers, and Notes
Our short courses are designed for individuals involved in planning, designing, building, launching, and operating space and defense systems. Determine for yourself the value of our courses before you sign up. See our samples (See Slide Samples) on some of our courses.
Or check out the new ATI channel on YouTube.
After attending the course you will receive a full set of detailed notes at the beginning of the class for future reference and can add notes and more detail based on the in-class interaction, as well as a certificate of completion. Please visit our website for more valuable information.
About ATI and the Instructors
Our mission here at ATI is to provide expert training and the highest quality professional development in space, communications, defense, sonar, radar, and signal processing. We are not a one-size-fits-all educational facility. Our short classes include both introductory and advanced courses.
ATI’s instructors are world-class experts who are the best in the business. They are carefully selected for their ability to clearly explain advanced technology.
Early Technical Short Courses for 2012 are forming Now! Why Not Give Yourself the Gift of Knowledge?
Posted by admin in Continuing Education and Seminar Marketing on December 19, 2011
Why Not Self-Gift This Year?
Are you or your team ready to face the challenges of 2012 with what you know at the end of 2011? With technology and industries shifting so quickly individuals need to embrace training just to keep up.
Why not give yourself a gift and take a short course?
Our short courses are less than a week long and are designed to help you keep your professional knowledge up-to-date and provide a strong foundation for understanding the issues that must be confronted in the use, regulation and development of complex systems.
For over twenty five years, the Applied Technology Institute (ATI) has provided leading-edge public courses and onsite technical training to DoD and NASA personnel, as well as contractors. Whether you are a busy engineer, a technical expert or a project manager, you can enhance your understanding of complex systems in a short time.
You will also become aware of the basic vocabulary essential to interact meaningfully with your colleagues. If you or your team is in need of more technical training, then boost your career with the knowledge needed to provide better, faster, and cheaper solutions for sophisticated DoD and NASA systems.
These 2012 Courses are Forming Now
PRACTICAL STATISTICAL SIGNAL PROCESSING – USING MATLAB
This 4-day course covers signal processing systems for radar, sonar, communications, speech, imaging and other applications based on state-of-the-art computer algorithms. These algorithms include important tasks such as data simulation, parameter estimation, filtering, interpolation, detection, spectral analysis, beamforming, classification, and tracking. Until now these algorithms could only be learned by reading the latest technical journals. This course will take the mystery out of these designs by introducing the algorithms with a minimum of mathematics and illustrating the key ideas via numerous examples using MATLAB.
COMPUTATIONAL ELECTROMAGNETICS
This 3-day course teaches the basics of CEM with application examples. Fundamental concepts in the solution of EM radiation and scattering problems are presented. Emphasis is on applying computational methods to practical applications. You will develop a working knowledge of popular methods such as the FEM, MOM, FDTD, FIT, and TLM including asymptotic and hybrid methods. Students will then be able to identify the most relevant CEM method for various applications, avoid common user pitfalls, understand model validation and correctly interpret results. Students are encouraged to bring their laptop to work examples using the provided FEKO Lite code. You will learn the importance of model development and meshing, post- processing for scientific visualization and presentation of results. Participants will receive a complete set of notes, a copy of FEKO and textbook.
STRAPDOWN AND INTEGRATED NAVIGATION SYSTEMS
In this highly structured 4-day short course – specifically tailored to the needs of busy engineers, scientists, managers, and aerospace professionals – Thomas S. Logsdon will provide you with new insights into the modern guidance, navigation, and control techniques now being perfected at key research centers around the globe. The various topics are illustrated with powerful analogies, full-color sketches, block diagrams, simple one-page derivations highlighting their salient features, and numerical examples that employ inputs from today’s battlefield rockets, orbiting satellites, and deep-space missions. These lessons are carefully laid out to help you design and implement practical performance-optimal missions and test procedures.
Course Outline, Samplers, and Notes
Our short courses are designed for individuals involved in planning, designing, building, launching, and operating space and defense systems. Determine for yourself the value of our other courses before you sign up. See our samples (See Slide Samples) on some of our courses.
Or check out the new ATI channel on YouTube.
After attending the course you will receive a full set of detailed notes at the beginning of the class for future reference and can add notes and more detail based on the in-class interaction, as well as a certificate of completion. Please visit our website for more valuable information.
About ATI and the Instructors
Our mission here at ATI is to provide expert training and the highest quality professional development in space, communications, defense, sonar, radar, and signal processing. We are not a one-size-fits-all educational facility. Our short classes include both introductory and advanced courses.
ATI’s instructors are world-class experts who are the best in the business. They are carefully selected for their ability to clearly explain advanced technology.
International Space Station Crew Set To Launch To A New Home For The Holidays
Posted by Val in Space and Satellites on December 19, 2011
Just in time for the holidays, the residents of the International Space Station will welcome three new crew members:
Flight Engineer Don Pettit (NASA)
Soyuz Commander Oleg Kononenko (Rosscosmos)
Flight Engineer Andre Kuipers (European Space Agency)
They are set to launch in their Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:16 a.m. CST on Wednesday, Dec. 21 (7:16 p.m. local time).
NASA Television will air video of prelaunch activities at 5:45 a.m. and provide live coverage of the launch beginning at 6:30 a.m
On Dec. 23, the trio will dock to the Rassvet module of the station at 9:22 a.m. The new crew will join station Commander Dan Burbank of NASA and Russian Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, who have been aboard the orbital laboratory since mid-November. NASA TV will provide live coverage beginning at 8:45 a.m. Hatch opening and the holiday welcoming ceremony will occur about three hours later.
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Stratolaunch Systems to develop flexible, orbital space delivery system
Posted by admin in Space and Satellites on December 15, 2011
New company Stratolaunch Systems is developing an air-launch system which it says will revolutionise space travel.
Stratolaunch Systems, a Huntsman, Alabama headquartered company founded by entrepreneur Paul G. Allen, will build a mobile launch system with three primary components:
- a carrier aircraft, developed by aircraft manufacturer Scaled Composites, founded by aerspace pioneer Burt Rutan;
- a multi-stage booster, manufactured by Space Exploration Technologies; and
- a mating and integration system allowing the carrier aircraft to carry a booster weighing up to 490 000 lbs, to be built by aerospace engineering companyDynetics.
The carrier aircraft, to be built by Scaled Composites (a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman), will weigh more than 1.2 million lbs, have a wingspan of 385 ft (greater than the length of a football field), and use six 747 engines. It will be the largest aircraft ever constructed.
The air-launch system requires a takeoff and landing runway that is, at minimum, 12 000 ft long. The carrier aircraft can fly over 1300 nautical miles to reach an optimal launch point.
The plane will be built in a Stratolaunch hangar which will soon be under construction at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. It will be near where Rutan’s team at Scaled Composites built SpaceShipOne funded by Paul Allen, which won the US$10-million Ansari X Prize in 2004 after three successful sub-orbital flights. Richard Branson of Virgin Group has since licensed the technology behind SpaceShipOne for Virgin Galactic, a venture that will take paying customers into space.
Lower costs, increased flexibility
The Stratolaunch system will eventually have the capability of launching people into low earth orbit, but the company is taking a building block approach in development of the launch aircraft and booster, with initial efforts focused on unmanned payloads. Human flights will follow, after safety, reliability and operability are demonstrated.
Plans call for a first flight in 2016.
The air-launch-to-orbit system will mean lower costs, greater safety, and more flexibility and responsiveness than is possible today with ground-based systems, reports Stratolaunch.
ATI’s Practical Statistical Signal Processing — using MATLAB, January 9-12, 2012 (Laurel, MD)
Posted by admin in Acoustics & Sonar, Analysis and Signal Processing, Defense, Including Radar, Missiles and EW on December 12, 2011
Could you use a toolbox of Digital Signal Processing algorithms written by the well-known professor Dr. Stephan Kay, as well as his personal instruction on how to use these algorithms to solve practical problems in your area of work? At his January class you will receive his two textbooks, a set of printed notes, and a disk with MATLAB code implementing his algorithms.
ATI’s Practical Statistical Signal Processing — using MATLAB course will be presented on January 9-12, 2012 in Laurel, MD.
This 4-day course covers signal processing systems for radar, sonar, communications, speech, imaging and other applications based on state-of-the-art computer algorithms. These algorithms include important tasks such as data simulation, parameter estimation, filtering, interpolation, detection, spectral analysis, beamforming, classification, and tracking. Until now these algorithms could only be learned by reading the latest technical journals. This course will take the mystery out of these designs by introducing the algorithms with a minimum of mathematics and illustrating the key ideas via numerous examples using MATLAB.
Designed for engineers, scientists, and other professionals who wish to study the practice of statistical signal processing without the headaches, this course will make extensive use of hands-on MATLAB implementations and demonstrations. Attendees will receive a suite of software source code and are encouraged to bring their own laptops to follow along with the demonstrations.
Each participant will receive two books, Fundamentals of Statistical Signal Processing: Vol. I and Vol. 2 by instructor Dr. Kay. A complete set of notes and a suite of MATLAB m-files will be distributed in source format for direct use or modification by the user.
See selected samples of the course materials. View course sampler
Instructor:
Dr. Steven Kay is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Rhode Island and the President of Signal Processing Systems, a consulting firm to industry and the government. He has over 25 years of research and development experience in designing optimal statistical signal processing algorithms for radar, sonar, speech, image, communications, vibration, and financial data analysis. Much of his work has been published in over 100 technical papers and the three textbooks, Modern Spectral Estimation: Theory and Application, Fundamentals of Statistical Signal Processing: Estimation Theory,, and Fundamentals of Statistical Signal Processing: Detection Theory. Dr. Kay is a Fellow of the IEEE.
Tuition:
Original: $2,095
Special blog price if you register before January 1, 2012: $1,995 ( We are testing how many people read the ATI blog and
will register based on the blog information)
Start your New Year with proper training! Register here.
This link shows you the current SCHEDULE of all courses.
Please circulate the information to any and all you think will be interested courses as well.
Maryland Innovation Research & Technology Companies Awarded NASA’s Contracts
Posted by Val in Space and Satellites on December 8, 2011
NASA has selected 10 small business proposals from Maryland to enter into negotiations for possible contract awards through the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.
These competitive awards-based programs encourage U.S. small businesses and research institutions to engage in federal research, development and commercialization. The programs enable teams to explore technological potential while providing the incentive to profit from new commercial products and services.
Visit http://www.aticourses.com/Maryland_Business_Research_Technology_Projects.htm to view the full list.
Upcoming Titles From SciTech Publishing
Posted by Val in Continuing Education and Seminar Marketing on December 1, 2011
Applied Technology Institute has been partnering with the SciTech Publishing for years. Here is a list of their upcoming titles.
- Integral Equation Methods for Electromagnetics (Volakis & Sertel)
- Expected week of December 5th, 2011
- Introduction to Biomechatronics
- Expected January 2012
Principles of Modern Radar Series Update
Once again, the Community Publishing Project is in full swing! We have all hands on deck to finish Principles of Modern Radar: Advanced Techniques by RadarCon 2012 in May (Atlanta). Every chapter, every section, and the entire manuscript has gone through the same community review process as its predecessor, Principles of Modern Radar: Basic Principles. If you are unaware of our community review process, check out the Publisher Acknowledgements section of the POMR sample we have running on our site.
EMC Series Update
The series continues to grow with new book proposals, contracts and manuscripts. We urge you to get involved with the series as every electrical/electronic engineer must deal with these issues! Here’s what is in the works right now:
- Circuit Modeling for EMC (Ian Darney)
- Additional reviewers needed for draft manuscript.
- Design of Wireless Communication Systems for EMC (Bill Duff)
- Practical EMC Troubleshooting (Pat Andre, Ed Nagauchi)
- Spectrum and Network Measurement, 2nd Edition (Bob Witte)
- Need proposal reviews.
Forthcoming Early 2012
- Pulse Doppler Radar (Clive Alabaster)
- Reference
- MATLAB for Electrical and Computer Engineering (Roland Priemer)
- Text/Reference
- Introduction to Sensors and Actuators (Nathan Ida)
- Text/Reference
Want to listen to a whale song LIVE? Tune in to Whale FM!
Posted by Val in Underwater Acoustics and Sonar on December 1, 2011
If you are interested in whales and would like to know more about them, now is your chance. Citizen Scientist Alliance launched a new project named The Whale Song Project or Whale FM.
Via “Hokumoanalani” (Star of the Heavenly Ocean) hydrophone that was launched off the coast of Hawaii in 2005. Now with a help of the radio system, transmitter and audio feed up to 100 citizen scientists can listen to various whale songs.
After listening to the whale call citizen scientists are asked to listen to a number of potential matching calls from the project’s database. If a match is found, the citizen scientist clicks on that sound’s spectrogram and the results are stored.
The data generated by this project should help scientists to answer a number of questions regarding whale communication. For example, researchers want to know the size of the pilot whales’ call repertoire and whether repertoire size is a sign of intelligence. In addition, researchers seek to understand whether the two different types of pilot whales—long fin and short fin—have different call repertoires, and, if so, whether this signifies a distinct dialect.
If you would like to listen to the whale songs here are some Tune-In Links:
iTunes or Winamp:
http://cast.shoutcasti.com/tunein.php/dansyt00/playlist.pls
Real Player:
http://cast.shoutcasti.com/tunein.php/dansyt00/playlist.ram
Windows Media Player:
http://cast.shoutcasti.com/tunein.php/dansyt00/playlist.asx
QuickTime:
http://cast.shoutcasti.com/tunein.php/dansyt00/playlist.qtl
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