Archive for the ‘New Technologies’ Category

We have put in operation the new astronomy observations database for any astronomers, for amateurs and also for professional. You can simply create the account yourself here at this link or you can visit and search the database here.

The full membership in this database is free, you can submit any your amateur or professional astronomy observations and show your work to the public. You can also submit the meteorological observations in the special section just for this. If you have any ideas for improvement or any critics, please let us know via the contact form on these pages.

The language policy of the Database is free, so you are allowed to use any language there. So why wait? Let’s go to the database >>>

Europe’s Ariane 5 commercial launcher carried out another uneventful trek to orbit Saturday night, successfully deploying a powerful broadcasting bird for the Arab world and a unique spacecraft to see and communicate with South Korea.

The rocket roared away from a jungle launch base on the northeastern coast of South America at 2141 GMT (5:41 p.m. EDT) atop the thrust produced by its hydrogen-fueled main engine and twin solid boosters.

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With the launch Thursday (22 April 2010) of the X-37B spacecraft aboard an Atlas V rocket, the U.S. Air Force is taking a page from NASA’s space shuttle program.

Looking somewhat like a traditional shuttle but at roughly one-quarter the size, the unmanned X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle took off for its maiden space voyage from Cape Canaveral in Florida and reached a low earth orbit late in the day. The X-37B is intended to serve as a platform for experiments and to offer insights on transporting satellite sensors and other equipment to and from space.

“If these technologies on the vehicle prove to be as good as we estimate, it will make our access to space more responsive, perhaps cheaper, and push us in the vector toward being able to react to warfighter needs more quickly,” said Gary Payton, the Air Force deputy undersecretary for space programs, in a statement on the Air Force Web site.

Does that cryptic reference to “warfighter needs” signal the dawn of a new era of space weaponry? That probably remains some distance off in the future. The Pentagon is still in the very early days, for instance, of sorting out how to use directed-energy gear such as its lone Airborne Laser prototype. And certainly there are plenty of non-weaponized resources for the military in orbit, such as GPS and reconnaissance satellites, that a space plane could service.

As part of this initial mission, the Air Force will evaluate the X-37B’s guidance, navigation, thermal protection, and unmanned operations in orbit, re-entry, and landing. It will function in space like other satellites, with operators on Earth monitoring its travels. Eventually, the Air Force will tell the space plane to head home. “Upon being given the command to return to Earth, the X-37B will automatically descend through the atmosphere and land on the designated runway. There is no one on the ground with a joystick flying it,” said Lt. Col. Troy Giese, the X-37B systems program director, in a statement.

With NASA’s fleet of space shuttles due to be retired later this year, the Air Force has been searching for a new class of vehicles to take over the role of reusable space plane. But the X-37B has a ways to go before it’s fully fledged.

Geneva, 30 March 2010. Beams collided at 7 TeV in the LHC at 13:06 CEST, marking the start of the LHC research programme. Particle physicists around the world are looking forward to a potentially rich harvest of new physics as the LHC begins its first long run at an energy three and a half times higher than previously achieved at a particle accelerator.

CERN will run the LHC for 18-24 months with the objective of delivering enough data to the experiments to make significant advances across a wide range of physics channels. As soon as they have “re-discovered” the known Standard Model particles, a necessary precursor to looking for new physics, the LHC experiments will start the systematic search for the Higgs boson. With the amount of data expected, called one inverse femtobarn by physicists, the combined analysis of ATLAS and CMS will be able to explore a wide mass range, and there’s even a chance of discovery if the Higgs has a mass near 160 GeV. If it’s much lighter or very heavy, it will be harder to find in this first LHC run.

For supersymmetry, ATLAS and CMS will each have enough data to double today’s sensitivity to certain new discoveries. Experiments today are sensitive to some supersymmetric particles with masses up to 400 GeV. An inverse femtobarn at the LHC pushes the discovery range up to 800 GeV.

“The LHC has a real chance over the next two years of discovering supersymmetric particles,” explained Rolf Heuer (CERN Director General), “and possibly giving insights into the composition of about a quarter of the Universe.”

source: CERN press release

European Commission announces the award of major Galileo contracts. On 7th January 2010 Antonio Tajani, European Commission Vice-President in charge of Transport, has announced the award of three of the six contracts for the procurement of Galileo’s initial operational capability. These contracts will be signed in the next weeks between ESA, on behalf of the European Commission, and the chosen companies. (source ESA)