Tag: Technology

Categories
GeekWire

How the ion drive will blaze a trail to asteroid

An artist’s concept shows a space probe powered by ion thrusters. (Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne)

Aerojet Rocketdyne’s next-generation ion thrusters could well make their debut in space during NASA’s robotic mission to grab a piece of an asteroid and bring it back to lunar orbit in the 2020s.

Earlier this week, NASA announced that Aerojet’s operation in Redmond, Wash., would be getting in on a 36-month, $67 milllion contract to develop a high-power electric propulsion system for future spacecraft. Today, NASA officials explained what the system would be used for.

“Basically, we’re building a whole new drive train for deep-space exploration,” Bryan Smith, director of NASA’s Space Flight Systems Directorate at Glenn Research Center in Ohio, told reporters.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Solar Impulse is back on round-the-world trek

Solar Impulse CEO Andre Borschberg flashes a thumbs-up as the Solar Impulse 2 airplane, piloted by Bertrand Piccard, rises from its runway in Hawaii. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

More than a year after its odyssey began, the Solar Impulse 2 airplane resumed its round-the-world, solar-powered trip in Hawaii today.

The ultra-lightweight plane took off at 6:18 a.m. Hawaii time (9:18 a.m. PT).

Solar Impulse began the trek in March 2015, taking off from Abu Dhabi and making stopovers in Oman, India, Myanmar, China and Japan. It got as far as Hawaii last July.

That five-day, five-night nonstop flight across the Pacific to Hawaii took a heavy toll on the plane’s batteries. The system overheated, and it took several months to make the repairs. The team also had to wait for reliably good weather to return.

Now the $150 million project has gotten off the ground again.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Solar Impulse gets set to return to the air

The Solar Impulse 2 airplane is ready to fly from Hawaii to California. (Credit: Solar Impulse)

More than a year after the odyssey began, the Swiss-led Solar Impulse project is ready to resume its round-the-world, solar-powered airplane flight in Hawaii on April 21.

Takeoff is set for 3 p.m. GMT (8 a.m. PT, 5 a.m. Hawaii time), the team tweeted.

The ultra-lightweight Solar Impulse 2 airplane started out on its trek from Abu Dhabi in March 2015, made stopovers in Oman, India, Myanmar, China and Japan, and got as far as Hawaii last July.

The five-day, five-night nonstop flight across the Pacific to Hawaii took a heavy toll on the plane’s batteries, however. The system overheated, and it took several months to make the repairs. The team also had to wait for reliably good weather to return.

This week, the leaders of the $150 million effort said it was finally time to fly.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Aerojet wins $67M NASA contract for ion drive

A prototype 13-kilowatt Hall thruster fires during testing at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. The prototype demonstrated the technology readiness needed for industry to continue the development of high-power solar electric propulsion into a flight-ready system. (Credit: NASA)

Aerojet Rocketdyne’s operation in Redmond, Wash., has won a $67 million contract from NASA to design and develop an advanced electric propulsion system that could power future trips to an asteroid and Mars.

The goal of the 36-month project is to deliver an integrated system that could improve fuel efficiency by a factor of 10 over today’s chemical rocket propulsion systems, and double the thrust capability of current electric propulsion systems.

The work could set the stage for a deep-space demonstration mission by 2020, Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said today in a news release announcing the contract award.

“Development of this technology will advance our future in-space transportation capability for a variety of NASA deep-space human and robotic exploration missions, as well as private commercial space missions,” he said.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

BlueDot founder previews his innovation factory

Entrepreneur Naveen Jain takes a zero-G airplane flight. (Credit: Naveen Jain / Zero Gravity Corp. via Twitter)

Naveen Jain’s Moon Express is well along in its plans for a lunar mission next year, but the Seattle dot-com entrepreneur is also pursuing “moonshots” here on Earth through his BlueDot venture.

BlueDot, based in Bellevue, Wash., came into the open last November with the goal of turning the discoveries made at research institutions around the country into innovative products. At the time, Jain told GeekWire that the venture’s first technological targets would be charging devices that harvest ambient energy and non-invasive devices that detect pathogens.

Now we’re learning how BlueDot plans to proceed, and how much it will take.

CNBC reports that the venture has brought in $8.3 million in investment, which translates into a valuation of $60 million. And NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski has surfaced as the company’s co-founder and chief technology officer.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

BluHaptics wins grant for subsea robot system

BluHaptics’ chief technology officer, Fredrik Ryden, controls a robotic arm using a haptic pen and an Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset. (Credit: BluHaptics)

BluHaptics has received a $747,197 grant from the National Science Foundation to work on a virtual-reality robotic control system that could transform underwater operations as much as drones have transformed aerial operations.

The project, which includes a subcontract to the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, will use 3-D data fusion and machine learning to develop safer, more intuitive ways to pilot remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs. Such vehlcles can capture imagery and manipulate objects miles beneath the sea surface.

“Our technology will make subsea and underwater operations safer,” BluHaptics’ chief technology officer, Fredrik Ryden, said today in a blog posting announcing the NSF’s Phase II Small Business Innovative Research grant. “Divers can be replaced in hazardous situations by telerobots with improved control based on our products. The rate of untoward incidents, and their severity, will be mitigated for a large range of subsea activities.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Tesla Model 3 update: 325,000 cars ordered

The Tesla Model 3’s design is still in flux, Elon Musk says. (Credit: Tesla Motors)

In the week since Tesla Motors unveiled its Model 3 electric car at the not-so-ludicrous price of $35,000, would-be owners have put in orders for more than 325,000 cars, company CEO Elon Musk reported April 7.

Even Musk admitted that the response was two to four times higher than he expected it to be. “No one at Tesla thought it would be this high,” he said in a tweet.

In a blog post, Tesla Motors noted that the reservations could translate into $14 billion in sales. (That’s based on the assumption that the average option package would bring the per-car cost to $43,000.)

When Model 3 production ramps up, starting in late 2017, Musk is aiming to turn out as many as 500,000 cars a year. But hitting that mark could pose a challenge.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

LOL! Cat photo data stored in DNA molecules

All the movies, images and other data from more than 600 basic smartphones (10 terabytes) can be stored in the pink smear of DNA at the end of this test tube. (Credit: Tara Brown Photography / UW)

Researchers at the University of Washington and Microsoft are developing a digital storage system that can archive data in DNA molecules, with the random-access readability and error correction protocols that’d be required for real-world applications.

Once they’ve overcome those hurdles, they just have to figure out how to make the technology affordable. Eventually, such research could help open the way for data storage devices that can pack information millions of times more tightly than current silicon-based methods.

“Life has produced this fantastic molecule called DNA that efficiently stores all kinds of information about your genes and how a living system works — it’s very, very compact and very durable,” Luis Ceze, UW associate professor of computer science and engineering, said in a news release. “We’re essentially repurposing it to store digital data — pictures, videos, documents — in a manageable way for hundreds or thousands of years.”

Ceze and his colleagues describe their work in a paper presented this week in Atlanta at the ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, or ASPLOS.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Report calls for drone crash-test dummies

Photographer Chase Jarvis with a drone at Gas Works Park in Seattle.

Drones should face the equivalent of crash-test dummies to gauge how safe they are for flying around people, a panel appointed by the Federal Aviation Administration said in a report released today.

The recommendations from the Micro UAS Aviation Rulemaking Committee laid out a wide range of conditions for letting drones, also known as unmanned aircraft systems, fly close to the uninvolved public. Such flights are not allowed under a different set of regulations that are due for release within the next few months.

The committee, which includes industry representatives and other stakeholders, finished its report in less than a month. “We commend the committee members for their sincere dedication and for producing a comprehensive report in such a short time,” FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

New director for Washington’s aerospace office

A Boeing 787 jet flies over Mount Rainier. (Credit: Boeing)

Longtime engineering executive John Thornquist has been chosen to head up Washington state’s Office of Aerospace, just as the state’s $70 billion-plus industry sector is heading into a time of transition.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced the selection today, and Thornquist takes over the director’s reins on Tuesday.

Thornquist was managing director, CEO and co-founder of Carbon Aerospace, an Everett-based consulting firm specializing in carbon composite structures. Before his time at Carbon, he was a co-founder of Global Aerosystems in Everett, which later became Kaman Engineering Services.

Under Thornquist’s leadership, Kaman earnedBoeing supplier of the year honors in 2013.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Exit mobile version