NASA Plans Test of New Moon Lander Morpheus

By Clara Moskowitz

A squat, insectlike contraption is set to fly untethered for the first time soon in a NASA test of technologies designed to take humans to the moon, Mars or beyond.

The unmanned Morpheus lander, named after the Greek god of dreams, was built at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston using cutting-edge technologies that the agency hopes will one day enable manned missions to another planet or even an asteroid. The vehicle, about the size of an SUV, could carry about 1,100 pounds (500 kg) of cargo to the moon.

Not only are the technologies onboard innovative, but NASA's process of building the lander is, too.

"Part of what this project set out to do was to question the way we've done things," Project Morpheus manager Matt Ondler told SPACE.com. "We purposefully set out to see if we could do things faster and cheaper, leveraging off the work that was already done."

So far, the project has cost NASA about $4 million over the last 18 months, not counting the NASA work force, which is accounted for under NASA's general overhead.

Cutting-edge tech

One of the primary technologies being tested on the lander is a system intended to spot dangerous craters or boulders that could make a landing spot on another planet unsafe. The so-called Automated Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology — or ALHAT — uses lasers to image the surface of a body and identify hazards as it flies over. [Video: NASA's Morpheus Lander Lights Engine]

Previous missions, such as the Apollo 11 moon landing, have taught us that such a capability could be critical. When Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were nearing the lunar surface on that first moon trip, they almost ran out of fuel while looking for a suitable spot to touch down.

Another innovation being tested on Morpheus is a lighter, safer mix of fuel.

The landing machine is powered by liquid oxygen and methane, which NASA says is a safer alternative to traditional spacecraft propellants. Not only that, but it's 10 to 20 times less expensive and weighs significantly less — an important distinction when every pound of weight carried into space requires an additional 15 pounds of fuel to get it there.

Such a fuel mix might also be renewable at the spacecraft's destination. Engineers are already working on methods to extract oxygen from the lunar surface, and methane is known to exist in the atmosphere on Mars.

Tethered tests

Morpheus has already undergone several tests while tethered to a crane so it doesn't get out of control. But these haven't always gone quite as planned.

One test on April 27, for example, had to be aborted after the lander started swinging wildly. In NASA parlance, "shortly after ignition the vehicle pitched over and control authority was lost," according to a NASA Morpheus blog.

But the Morpheus researchers aren't discouraged, and are gearing up for the machine's biggest test to date: an untethered, free flight up to an altitude of 100 feet (30 meters), then over 100 feet to the west, then a landing.

The exact date for this test isn't yet set, but mission managers expect it to occur sometime in June.

"There are still a few more issues that we're working through," Ondler said. "We want to have two complete tethered flights in a row with no anomalies before we go untethered."

The test will be a significant milestone for the Morpheus project.

"It's sort of like taking the training wheels off," Ondler said. "If we've done everything right, it should work just fine, but there's no safety net to catch it if things don't go right."

The project involves about 30 mostly full-time workers, plus another 30 part-time employees at Johnson Space Center, Ondler said.

"For a lot of the people here, this is why they came to NASA," Ondler said. "It was to build stuff, to light engines off and fly things, so I think it's been very exciting for people who've had a chance to work on it."

Ondler said the work on Morpheus is going so well, NASA hopes to expand the development model to more projects throughout the agency, both at Johnson Space Center and other NASA centers around the country.

"Projects like Morpheus are invigorating and infectious," said Steve Altemus, director of Johnson's Engineering Directorate, in a statement. "And they help us find better and cheaper ways to do things. To challenge our existing processes. To innovate."

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/12/nasa-plans-test-new-moon-lander-apollo/?test=faces







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Project Morpheus: Americans Heading Back to the Moon?

[Video: NASA's Morpheus Lander Lights Engine]

NASA's Corvette Connection

When you are shot into outer space strapped to a rocket for a living, you have a slightly different threshold for excitement than most people. So what kind of car do you drive when you come back down to Earth?

For Alan Shepard, who was the first American to break free of the planet’s atmosphere on May 5th, 1961 the choice was almost obvious: a Chevrolet Corvette. The Navy test pilot owned a 1957 ‘Vette when he was chosen for the space program in 1959, one of 10 he would own over the course of his lifetime. After returning from his successful mission, General Motors President Ed Cole presented the national hero with a brand new 1962 Corvette, helping to kick off a relationship between astronauts and Corvettes that has lasted ever since.

All told, six of the 7 Mercury astronauts would drive Corvettes during their time in the program, thanks in part to a special lease deal offered to them by Chevrolet dealer and Indy 500 winner, Jim Rathman. According to General Motors, only John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, chose a Chevy station wagon over the sports car.

Over the years others would follow, including the entire crew of Apollo 12, who had their matching 1969 Corvette Stingrays painted gold. The Apollo 15 crew would do them one better on the patriotism front, with red, white and blue cars between them. In fact, they liked them so much that they brought a GM product to the moon with them, in the form of the Lunar Roving Vehicle.

To celebrate this ongoing connection, the Cape Kennedy Corvette Club is bringing together 30 surviving astronauts and a collection of Corvettes from the past five decades on Saturday, May 7th to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Shepard’s flight with a parade near the Kennedy Space Center in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/05/07/nasas-corvette-connection/

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Alan Shepard Interview (February 1, 1991)

Freedom 7 - Al Shepard: First American in Space

NASA celebrates 50 years of U.S. human space flight

NEW SuperSpeed USB 3.0

By Melissa J. Perenson, PCWorld

When you're in front of your PC, waiting for something to transfer to removable media, that's when seconds feel like minutes, and minutes feel like hours. And data storage scenarios such as that one is where the new SuperSpeed USB 3.0's greatest impact will be felt first. As of CES, 17 SuperSpeed USB 3.0-certified products were introduced, including host controllers, adapter cards, motherboards, and hard drives (but no other consumer electronics devices). Still more uncertified USB 3.0 products are on the way, and they can't get here fast enough.

Glance Backward

The beauty of USB 3.0 is its backward compatibility with USB 2.0; you need a new cable and new host adapter (or, one of the Asus or Gigabyte motherboards that supports USB 3.0) to achieve USB 3.0, but you can still use the device on a USB 2.0 port and achieve typical USB 2.0 performance. In reducing some overhead requirements of USB (now, the interface only transmits data to the link and device that need it, so devices can go into low power state when not needed), the new incarnation now uses one-third the power of USB 2.0.

The theoretical throughput improvement offered by USB 3.0 is dramatic -- a theoretical 10X jump over existing USB 2.0 hardware. USB 2.0 maxed out at a theoretical 480Mbps, while USB 3.0 can theoretically handle up to 5Gbps. Mind you, applications like storage will still be limited by the type of drive inside; so, for example, you can expect better performance from RAIDed hard drives or fast solid-state drives (SSDs) than from, say, a standalone single drive connected to the computer via USB 3.0.

The real-world examples are fairly convincing -- and underscore USB 3.0's advantage for high-def video, music, and digital imaging applications. Our early test results are encouraging as well: We tested Western Digital's My Book 3.0, the first USB 3.0-certified external hard drive. The performance was on a par with that of eSATA-but the benefit here is that USB 3.0 is a powered port, so you don't need to have another external power supply running to the drive (as you do with eSATA; unless the eSATA drive you're using is designed to steal power from a USB port while transferring data over the eSATA interface).

New Entries

While the WD drive was the first to announce, a slew of other hard drive makers either announced products at the show, or discussed plans to release products in the coming months. Among them: Seagate (which is doing a portable drive), LaCie, Rocstor, and Iomega. Even non-traditional hard drive vendors like Dane-Elec and A-Data showed products they billed as USB 3.0 (the latter two even had USB 3.0-connected SSDs, the first external drives to use solid-state storage inside.

One of the things to look for in the coming months is the certified SuperSpeed USB 3.0 logo. Products are currently filling the queues at the official certification testing labs, but presence of that certification logo will give you some peace of mind that the product you're buying truly does live up to the USB 3.0 spec.

Given that the certification labs are jammed up, though, you can expect companies to release USB 3.0 products without official certification. (Buffalo Technologies' drive, released late 2009, is not certified; LaCie's drives are in the process of certification, but will initially carry LaCie's own logo for USB 3.0, and will gain a sticker on the box once certification is completed.) And in those cases, it will be hard to know whether the device truly lives up to its performance potential.

Compatibility Guarantee

And this time around, the way the USB spec is written, says Jeff Ravencraft, consumers should have an easier time finding products that are truly USB 3.0. Before, in the transition from USB 1.1 to USB 2.0, the USB 2.0 spec was written in a way where it "encompassed low, full and high-speed USB," explains Ravencraft, president and chairman of the USB Implementers Forum. "Since those are all encapsulated in the USB 2.0 spec, [vendors] could have a certified product that's low-speed, but still call it USB 2.0.

"We don't have that issue with USB 3.0 To claim you're USB 3.0, you have to deliver 5Gbps. There's no other way to get the certification."

Ravencraft adds that the group is prepared to protect the USB 3.0 logo, to make sure that only manufacturers who go through certification use it. "We'll take legal action if anyone infringes on our marks."

By end of year, Ravencraft says the loggerjam of products awaiting certification should be past, and the organization's network of worldwide test labs will be handling USB 3.0 certification.

According to In-Stat Research, by 2013, more than one-quarter of USB 3.0 products will support SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

Ravencraft says this is the fastest ramp up of USB products he's seen in the past ten years, across the previous versions of USB.

I say the change can't come fast enough. The trick, though, will be getting the interface into our notebooks (without requiring a kludgy ExpressCard adapter). So far, though, only HP and Fujitsu have announced limited USB 3.0 support on notebooks. And Taiwanese notebook and desktop maker MSI indicated that it wouldn't have USB 3.0 until, at the earliest, the third-quarter of this year; product managers for both notebooks and desktops cited manufacturing concerns like chipset availability in large quantities, and the need to test USB 3.0 chipsets.

And in the meantime, the only announced peripherals remain storage devices. At next year's CES, it's likely we'll hear more about specific consumer electronics devices such as digital cameras and camcorders and video cameras moving to USB 3.0. Hopefully by then we'll start getting a critical mass of PC hardware with USB 3.0 integrated, too.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/186566/usb_30_finally_arrives.html

TOP 5 USB 3.0 FAQ

1. How does USB 3.0 achieve the extra performance?

USB 3.0 achieves the much higher performance by way of a number of technical changes. Perhaps the most obvious change is an additional physical bus that is added in parallel with the existing USB 2.0 bus. This means that where USB 2.0 previously had 4 wires (power, ground, and a pair for differential data), USB 3.0 adds 4 more for two pairs of differential signals (receive and transmit) for a combined total of 8 connections in the connectors and cabling. These extra two pairs were necessary to support the SuperSpeed USB target bandwidth requirements, because the two wire differential signals of USB 2.0 were not enough.
Furthermore, the signaling method, while still host-directed, is now asynchronous instead of polling. USB 3.0 utilizes a bi-directional data interface rather than USB 2.0's half-duplex arrangement, where data can only flow in one direction at a time. Without getting into any more technical mumbo jumbo, this all combines to give a ten-fold increase in theoretical bandwidth, and a welcome improvement noticeable by anyone when SuperSpeed USB products hit the market.


2. Isn't USB 2.0 fast enough?

Well, yes and no. USB 2.0 for many applications provides sufficient bandwidth for a variety of devices and hubs to be connected to one host computer. However, with today's ever increasing demands placed on data transfers with high-definition video content, terrabyte storage devices, high megapixel count digital cameras, and multi-gigabyte mobile phones and portable media players, 480Mbps is not really fast anymore. Furthermore, no USB 2.0 connection could ever come close to the 480Mbps theoretical maximum throughput, making data transfer at around 320 Mbps - the actual real-world maximum. Similarly, USB 3.0 connections will never achieve 4.8Gbps, but even 50% of that in practice is almost a 10x improvement over USB 2.0.


3. What other improvements does USB 3.0 provide?

The enhancements to SuperSpeed USB are not just for higher data rates, but for improving the interaction between device and host computer. While the core architectural elements are inherited from before, several changes were made to support the dual bus arrangement, and several more are notable for how users can experience the improvement that USB 3.0 makes over USB 2.0:


More power when needed
50% more power is provided for unconfigured or suspended devices (150 mA up from 100 mA), and 80% more power is available for configured devices (900 mA up from 500 mA). This means that more power-hungry devices could be bus powered, and battery powered devices that previously charged using bus power could potentially charge more quickly.
A new Powered-B receptable is defined with two extra contacts that enable a devices to provide up to 1000 mA to another device, such as a Wireless USB adapter. This eliminates the need for a power supply to accompany the wireless adapter...coming just a bit closer to the ideal system of a wireless link without wires (not even for power). In regular wired USB connections to a host or hub, these 2 extra contacts are not used.

Less power when it's not needed
Power efficiency was a key objective in the move to USB 3.0. Some examples of more efficient use of power are:
Link level power management, which means either the host computer or the device can initiate a power savings state when idle
The ability for links to enter progressively lower power management states when the link partners are idle
Continuous device polling is eliminated
Broadcast packet transmission through hubs is eliminated
Device and individual function level suspend capabilities allow devices to remove power from all, or portions of their circuitry not in use

Streaming for bulk transfers is supported for faster performance
Isochronous transfers allows devices to enter low power link states between service intervals
Devices can communicate new information such as their latency tolerance to the host, which allows better power performance

To paint an accurate picture, not everything in USB 3.0 is a clear improvement. Cable length, for one, is expected to have a significant limitation when used in applications demanding the highest possible throughput. Although maximum cable length is not specified in the USB 3.0 specification, the electrical properties of the cable and signal quality limitations may limit the practical length to around 3 metres when multi-gigabit transfer rates are desired. This length, of course, can be extended through the use of hubs or signal extenders.
Additionally, some SuperSpeed USB hardware, such as hubs, may always be more expensive than their USB 2.0 counterparts. This is because by definition, a SuperSpeed hub contains 2 hubs: one that enumerates as a SuperSpeed hub, and a second one that enumerates as a regular high-speed hub. Until the USB hub silicon becomes an integrated SuperSpeed USB + Hi-Speed USB part, there may always be a significant price difference.

Some unofficial discussion has surfaced on the web with respect to fiber-optic cabling for longer cable length with USB 3.0. The specification makes no mention of optical cabling, so we conclude that this will be defined in a future spec revision, or left to 3rd party companies to implement cable extension solutions for SuperSpeed USB.

4. Will my existing peripherals still work? How will they co-exist?

The good news is that USB 3.0 has been carefully planned from the start to peacefully co-exist with USB 2.0. First of all, while USB 3.0 specifies new physical connections and thus new cables to take advantage of the higher speed capability of the new protocol, the connector itself remains the same rectangular shape with the four USB 2.0 contacts in the exact same location as before. Five new connections to carry receive and transitted data independently are present on USB 3.0 cables and only come into contact when mated with a proper SuperSpeed USB connection.


5. Where are those SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products?

USB 3.0 silicon such as USB host controllers, peripheral chipsets and hubs compliant with the SuperSpeed bus have arrived in the latter half of 2009. Since then, a handful of external hard drives, flash drives, storage docks, Blu-ray optical drives, high-end notebooks, and host adapters in both PCI Express and ExpressCard have begun appearing on retail shelves. Other companies have shown their plans to roll out solid-state drives and RAID. DisplayLink also revealed plans to ship USB 3.0-compliant USB video silicons by Q4 2010.

It is important to note that NEC (now Renesas Electronics) and Fresco Logic are the only fabs to produce xHCI USB 3.0 host silicons as of this writing (October 2010). Until Intel, nVidia and AMD start bundling USB 3.0 as part of their motherboard chipset, companies interested in equipping USB 3.0 on their systems will have to source from said fabs for the chipsets

http://www.everythingusb.com/superspeed-usb.html

The Colin Walls Blog

Although USB 2.0 has served us well for numerous applications for many years, the need for greater capacity, speed etc. drove the development of USB 3.0. In recent weeks, both AMD and Intel have announced USB 3.0 support in their chip-sets, so it follows that it will become commonplace in PC in the not too distant future. That implies that USB 3.0 peripherals will be in demand and, of course, they tend to be embedded systems …
The key benefit of USB 3.0 is speed. Along with the three speeds offered by USB 2.0 [Low Speed, Full Speed and High Speed], USB 3.0 adds SuperSpeed, which promises data transfer 10X faster than before. The other particularly noticeable benefit is bus power. It has become increasingly common to find devices that connect to a PC via USB and also draw all their power from the interface. For example, I have several external disk drives and a flatbed scanner that all afford me this convenience. With USB 3.0, the available power is almost doubled, which increases the scope for application of the facility.

The implementation of USB is somewhat complex, as the current USB wiring would not straightforwardly support higher speeds. USB 3.0 cables feature 4 extra wires to carry SuperSpeed data traffic, in addition to the 2 used by USB 2.0 for the other speeds. A single pair of wires is needed to send data. In addition to higher speed, SuperSpeed is bidirectional - data can go up and down the bus simultaneously - hence the 4 wires. Earlier USB implementations were all unidirectional. This change means that new cables and connectors are required. The good news is that there is reasonable backwards compatibility - older USB plugs can be accommodated by USB 3.0 sockets. Building a USB network using equipment that supports different versions is somewhat complex. For example, a USB 3.0 hub can only offer downstream SuperSpeed data transfer if there is unbroken support for SuperSpeed upstream to the host. Ultimately this is not a serious limitation.

Next week I will be at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, California. I have a paper in the conference [which will actually be delivered by a very competent colleague] covering USB, with an emphasis on USB 3.0. I will also be hosting a Web seminar on the topic shortly. I strongly suspect that this will be a popular conference topic over the next year.

http://blogs.mentor.com/colinwalls/blog/2011/04/25/usb-30/

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USB 3.0 Speed Test vs USB 2.0 eSATA Internal connection

 Super Talent USB 3.0 Flash Drive -Express Duo

USB 3.0

Vantec NexStar 3 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 3.5"

Predator VS Firebird

By Amy Butler
Washington

After decades of enjoying a virtually uncontested lead in the medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial systems (UAS) market, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems may finally be facing some competition.

Northrop Grumman is unveiling its secretly developed Firebird aircraft, which is designed to capture some of General Atomics’ future market share, during the Pentagon’s Empire Challenge multinational intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) exercise this month. Though this will be the public’s first glimpse, defense officials have been quietly briefed on the concept for months.

The U.S. medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAS market is large, with General Atomics earning hundreds of millions of dollar’s of work annually, previously for the Predator and now—with Predator out of production—for the Air Force Reaper and Army Gray Eagle. “That was a target,” says Paul Meyer, director of Northrop Grumman’s Advanced Technology and Concepts division, referring to the MALE market. “That is the one that is unopposed today [but] when we looked at it, we needed to do something different.”

Firebird is an optionally piloted vehicle built by Northrop Grumman’s Scaled Composites in 12 months. First flown in February 2010, Firebird is the first publicly unveiled aircraft product of Meyer’s organization, which was formed about two years ago. Previously, Northrop had advanced concepts experts at each company location. “It was an adjunct arm of the operating business,” Meyer says. Now, forward-looking design work is a stand-alone function headquartered in Redondo Beach, Calif.

The twin-boom, Bronco tail design can carry up to four sensor payloads simultaneously and Firebird’s information architecture was crafted to offer users in disparate locations direct access to those sensors. The forward-swept wings, combined with other aircraft attributes, are designed for loitering and collecting intelligence and they also offer the ability to climb and dash to another target area if needed, company officials say. The aircraft is designed to fly at about 200 kt.

The heart of Firebird, however, is not the aircraft but the information technology architecture, says Rick Crooks, director of special programs at the company’s advanced concepts division. The aircraft and sensor command-and-control systems are rooted in 10 years of work to develop an open architecture amenable to quick payload switches, he says.

The optionally piloted design choice distinguishes Firebird from the General Atomics (GA) UAS and other aircraft. Though there is some interest in optionally piloted vehicles from the Pentagon—especially the Army—it is unlikely Firebird would ever eclipse Reaper in order numbers. “An optionally piloted [design] removes GA from the market,” says an industry official in the unmanned arena who is not affiliated with either company. One defense official notes that, at best, Firebird could snag 10-20% of the market now exclusively consumed by General Atomics’ designs. “Yes, it is an uphill battle. However, [Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton] Carter has made a demand for competition. Our friends down south have been in this market with no competition for 15 years,” Meyer says, referring to General Aromics. “The intent is to make sure we are not a stalking-horse. “We are hoping this exposure [at Empire Challenge] will intrigue someone to look at their acquisition plans and reconsider.”

The design, which has an endurance of 40 hr., depending on the payload and mission, could also provide an alternative to the Pentagon’s growing fleets of manned HawkerBeechcraft King Air 350 and 350ERs. The Air Force has purchased 37 MC-12W Project Liberty aircraft, which are modified to carry various intelligence payloads. And the Army also has a diverse fleet of similar aircraft. Meyer suggests the goal for Northrop Grumman was to design a basic truck that would allow for customers to focus spending on sensors. Typical mission duration for the King Airs operating in the field today is 4-6 hr.

The Army has sponsored Firebird in the Empire Challenge experiment.

Though there is some interest in the Pentagon, there is a window of time in which optionally piloted vehicles will be most attractive to U.S. customers. The ability to fly cross-country in a manned configuration is desirable in large part owing to the failure of the Pentagon and FAA to craft rules on flying unmanned vehicles in commercial air space. This problem does not exist in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the military owns the skies—and where Predator, Reaper and Global Hawk UAS are prevalent. But as long as interagency wrangling on the issue persists—and many experts say it will—optionally piloted vehicles could allow the military the flexibility of unmanned operations with the ease of transiting using standard rules for manned aviation. This feature could be especially useful when the system is required to operate in—or transit through—densely populated air space, such as in Europe.

Frank Pace, president of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, acknowledges there is a potential niche for optionally piloted vehicles in the MALE market because the aircraft can be quickly transported and configured for operations. Northrop Grumman refers to this as being “self-deployable.” Other systems, such as Predator and Reaper, are broken down and reassembled once they arrive on station.

“There might be some niche things available,” Pace notes, commenting on the MALE market. “But in terms of the next major procurement, Navy Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike System and [Air Force] MQ-X are really the only ones on the horizon.” Having secured his company’s place in the MALE arena, Pace says he is focused on the Avenger design for upcoming competitions.

Meanwhile, Northrop could hope to create some business with Firebird until those procurements are under way—with Uclass expected to begin before a next-generation Reaper replacement procurement. “We are not content with just being the Global Hawk and Fire Scout contractor,” Meyer says, referring to existing UAS programs at Northrop.

Some interest in Firebird has been generated in part because the aircraft was privately showcased to a group of defense officials in October 2010 in Sacramento, Calif. Crooks says that event was the first “multi-int” demonstration—employment of three sensors simultaneously—for Firebird. They included high-definition full-motion video (FMV), electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR), and synthetic aperture radar. These three payloads were integrated for the first time on the aircraft within 20 days, Crooks says.

During a December flight trial, two separate FMV sensors were integrated onto the aircraft within five days. This demonstrated partial wide area surveillance. Crooks says there are plans to eventually fly four FMV sensors simultaneously for a wide-field-of-view intelligence-collection capability.

This month, Northrop intends to showcase for the first time the use of up to four payloads simultaneously and rapidly integrated onto the aircraft during Empire Challenge, which runs May 23‑June 3. They are slated to include a mix of electronic support/direction finding, EO/IR (including short- and mid-wave infrared and high-definition FMV), radar and a communications relay. The goal is to demonstrate multiple missions during the same sortie (intelligence collection and communications relay), land the aircraft, reconfigure the sensor suite and launch within an hour. The sensors will be controlled by three geographically distinct users.

Empire Challenge is hosted by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, and it is designed to demonstrate near-term capabilities that can be rapidly deployed. The aircraft will fly out of Fort Huachuca, Ariz., for the exercise.

Northrop Grumman designed and built Firebird to be operationally ready; it is not considered a prototype, Crooks says. Plans for a second vehicle are nascent, though under way. Company officials say Firebird is considered to be the first of a potential family of vehicles all designed around the open architecture. This architecture is also a candidate for Northrop’s entry into Uclass and, eventually, MQ-X.

Though the first Firebird carries a general aviation Lycoming TEP-540 engine, Northrop is examining alternatives. A heavy-fuel engine designed to work using the same fuel Army officials pump into trucks is a priority, and a search is ongoing for candidates.

The aircraft design also has two hard points, one on each wing, and a station on the centerline suitable for carrying weapons in the future. A radar has previously been tested on the centerline station.

Though the first aircraft came from Scaled Composites, the ultimate goal is to transfer production to an existing facility—likely Palmdale, Calif., or Moss Point, Miss.—if orders are received, Meyer says.

To date, Firebird has been flown with a pilot in the cockpit. Even in the unmanned mode, a test pilot has been onboard.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/awst/2011/05/09/AW_05_09_2011_p52-316747.xml&headline=Northrop%20Grumman%20Aims%20To%20Take%20On%20Predator&next=10
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3Ac833c291-ab5b-4754-8e97-dfda8a75c421&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

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Northrop Grumman RQ-4N BAMS UAV

Ultimate Weapons- X-47B

Aurora Excalibur unmanned combat aircraft

Northrop Grumman Firebird optionally manned aircraft

Global Hawk UAV

Why India chose Europe over United State of America

By Trefor Moss

India's procurement of 126 multi-role combat aircraft has been one of the most eagerly anticipated defense deals in years, and not just because of its US$11 billion value.

The selection was always going to be interpreted as an expression of New Delhi's evolving strategic outlook, and to some in Washington, which has built an increasingly close alliance with India driven by a mutual wariness of China, a win for either Boeing or Lockheed Martin, the two US contractors competing for the contract, seemed assured.

But the Americans were wrong to think that friendship alone would unlock the door to India's defense dollars. At the end of April, the Indian government announced that neither US firm had even made

it onto the final short list, with Dassault of France and the European EADS consortium winning through at their expense.

Having made plain that the US was "deeply disappointed" by the outcome, the US ambassador to India promptly resigned, citing personal reasons that seemed barely to mask his frustration that American lobbying had failed in spite of President Barack Obama's personal appearance in New Delhi last November.

Lockheed Martin's F-16 was perhaps always an outsider to fulfill India's requirement: Pakistan already operates the aircraft, and this counted against it right from the start. But the Americans thought, not unreasonably, that Boeing's versatile F/A-18 Super Hornet, backed up by industrial offsets from General Electric as well as Boeing itself, was a strong claimant.

Unfortunately, the Indian Air Force's technical evaluators didn't see it that way. They felt that the newer French and European fighters performed better in India's often challenging operating environments. The Europeans also went further on technology transfer, while the US's end user agreements struck India as needlessly prohibitive.

"The Air Force was focusing on getting an aircraft that would be superior, and the American aircraft on offer just didn't cut it," says Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, the senior fellow for South Asia at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. "There was surprise in India at the extent of the US disappointment ... The Indian mindset was that this deal wasn't about cementing relationships, it was about getting the best deal. The Indian view is that the Americans should have offered better aircraft."

Both sides are left with the sense that the other might have attached more value to their alliance in order to make the fighter deal happen. For the US, that the Indians were unduly blase in ejecting both US aircraft from the competition; from the Indian perspective, the Americans should have dug deeper and demonstrated their commitment to the Indian relationship by putting together a much stronger package.

"I hope [the Americans] learn from this," says aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia, vice president at the Teal Group. While maintaining that the Super Hornet was as strong technically as the other competitors, Aboulafia suggests that the Americans' complacency lost them the deal. "If the US had really reformed its processes and said to the Indians, 'You're our partners, you're our equals,' then the F-18 would have had a very strong chance. That's the approach the Europeans took - they came and said, 'We need you'. I hope this is a rude awakening for them."

Aboulafia points out that the US also failed to overcome the "unfortunate legacy" of its refusal to export critical aircraft components to India during the 1999 Kargil conflict with Pakistan. India needed cast-iron guarantees that nothing like this would ever happen again, and these were not forthcoming.

Much has been read into India's refusal to do the US any special favors in this case, with some commentators applauding what they see as a return to India's traditional non-aligned roots and a rejection of a US-India strategic bloc. But by opting for a European aircraft, India is not seeking to avoid aligning itself with the US. India clearly is aligning itself with the US, but as a partner rather than a client; it also sees the US as one of several key strategic partners, rather than the only ally that counts.

India's strategy, above all, is to spread the risk. It has already signed significant contracts with the US for military surveillance and transport aircraft, as well as civil nuclear development. Russia, once India's principal arms supplier, also missed out of the multi-role fighter deal, but is jointly developing a fifth-generation fighter with India.

France recently secured a $20 billion contract to build civil nuclear reactors in India - an agreement which may count against Dassault in the final round of the fighter contest if New Delhi truly is determined to spread its largesse. Partnership with France is already secured, whereas the selection of EADS' Eurofighter would give four more countries - Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom - a vested interest in the modernization of India's military-industrial base.

Political considerations will now dictate which of the two finalists secures the contract, and also when a deal is announced. The government's corruption woes are such that it would be far too sensitive to announce a major contact award in the next few months, perhaps pushing back a final decision until 2012.

The stakes for EADS and Dassault could hardly be greater. A Eurofighter win could potentially propel the aircraft to further success in other Asian markets which have shown an interest in acquiring it - such as Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia - while the fortunes of Dassault's Rafale, which has only Brazil as a significant export customer so far, would be similarly transformed.
For the US, there is everything reason to be optimistic about the defense relationship with India, despite this setback. The Indian Air Force has already ordered six C-130J transport aircraft from Lockheed Martin, and eight P-8 multi-mission aircraft and 10 C-17 transport planes from Boeing; it will probably come back for more of all three types within the next few years.

But the biggest opportunity could be in encouraging India to buy Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II, a fifth-generation fighter that would be a capability leap beyond any of the aircraft under consideration this time around. Such a deal would be fraught with difficulties - not least how to involve Indian industry (as offset rules demand) in the construction of an aircraft that is far beyond its current technical capability - but the US has perhaps a decade to figure out how to get around them. India will certainly require a fifth-generation fighter as China makes progress towards acquiring one, and its prospects of successfully developing a fifth-generation fighter with Russia are mixed at best. The US certainly has a big incentive to learn the lessons of its recent setback.

After absorbing the initial disappointment, the US will put India's rebuff behind it and refocus on making the strategic relationship with India a cornerstone of its foreign policy in the Asian region. In this, it will find a willing partner, though India's assertiveness in rejecting the US aircraft will do it no harm as it strives to make that partnership an equal one.

Trefor Moss is a freelance journalist who covers Asian politics, in particular defense, security and economic issues. He is a former Asia-Pacific editor for Jane's Defense Weekly.



http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ME11Df04.html
 http://tealgroup.com/
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China succeeds in its largest unmanned helicopter's first flight

JINAN, May 7 (Xinhua)-- An unmanned helicopter, the largest of its kind in China, successfully completed its first flight in Weifang City of east China's Shandong Province Saturday.

The medium-sized unmanned helicopter, with a maximum takeoff weight of 757 kg, departed from the flight-test center of Weifang Tianxiang Aerospace Industry Co.Ltd in the morning and hovered for ten minutes, performing a few maneuvers before finishing with a stable landing.

The helicopter, model number "V750", has a load capacity of over 80 kg. It can fly a maximum speed of 161 km per hour with a cruising duration of over four hours. The aircraft can be controlled by humans within a distance of over 150 km or automatically fly following input by its programs.

Further, it could be used in surveillance, search and rescue, and scientific exploration in both military and civilian purposes, said Cheng Shenzong, Chairman of the Weifang Tianxiang Aerospace Industry Co.Ltd.

The helicopter has been developed together by organizations including Weifang Tianxiang Aerospace Industry Co.Ltd., Qingdao Haili Helicopters Manufacturing Co. Ltd, China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation in August 2010.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/photo/2011-05/07/c_13863514.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-05/08/c_13863972.htm

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Successful maiden flight of China's largest unmanned helicopter

America’s Middle Class Crisis: The Sobering Facts

Two recessions, a couple of market crashes, and stubbornly high unemployment are all wreaking havoc on America's middle class.

In the accompanying interview, The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task discusses the state of the middle class with Sherle Schwenninger, director of economic growth and American strategy programs at the New America Foundation. Schwenninger's recent report "The American Middle Class Under Stress" has some stunning facts that highlight the struggles the average American is having getting a decent-paying job and keeping up with rising cost of living.

Here are just some of the sobering facts:


-- There are 8.5 million people receiving unemployment insurance and over 40 million receiving food stamps.

-- At the current pace of job creation, the economy won't return to full employment until 2018.

-- Middle-income jobs are disappearing from the economy. The share of middle-income jobs in the United States has fallen from 52% in 1980 to 42% in 2010.

-- Middle-income jobs have been replaced by low-income jobs, which now make up 41% of total employment.

-- 17 million Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor's degree.

-- Over the past year, nominal wages grew only 1.7% while all consumer prices, including food and energy, increased by 2.7%.

-- Wages and salaries have fallen from 60% of personal income in 1980 to 51% in 2010. Government transfers have risen from 11.7% of personal income in 1980 to 18.4% in 2010, a post-war high.

The bottom line is simple says Schwenninger: The middle class is shrinking, which threatens the social composition and stability of the world's biggest economy. "I worry that we're becoming a barbell society - a lot of money wealth and power at the top, increasing hollowness at the center, which I think provides the stability and the heart and soul of the society... and then too many people in fear of falling down."

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/america-middle-class-crisis-sobering-facts-141947274.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42881365/ns/business-personal_finance/


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NET JOBS USA

http://tipstrategies.com/interactive/geo-jobs-2011-01/

What’s going on with the economy?

The mortgage loan modification trap

Interview with New America Foundation

The Disappearing American Middle Class!

Homeless Middle Class

Jesse Ventura: Corporate media, Censorship and American Conspiracies