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Another Historic Rocket Landing - The Falcon has Landed

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Another Historic Rocket Landing - The Falcon has Landed

 

HISTORIC ROCKET LANDING! - Jeff Bezos - BLUE ORIGIN

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HISTORIC ROCKET LANDING! - Jeff Bezos - BLUE ORIGIN

 

Have Scientists Discovered An Alien Civilization Building Jupiter Sized Structures?

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Have Scientists Discovered An Alien Civilization

Building Jupiter Sized Structures?

 

Private Moon Landing Scheduled for 2017

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Private Moon Landing Scheduled for 2017

The first private moon landing could be just two years away.

California-based company Moon Express, which aims to fly commercial missions to the moon and help unlock its resources, has signed a five-launch deal with Rocket Lab, with the first two robotic liftoffs scheduled to take place in 2017.

These uncrewed launches — three of which are firmly on the books, with the other two optional at the moment — will blast Moon Express' MX-1 lander into space aboard Rocket Lab's 52.5-foot-tall (16 meters) Electron rocket. The goal is to test out the MX-1 and its systems, making sure the spacecraft can land softly on the moon, move about the lunar surface, grab samples and return them to Earth. [Moon Express: A Private Lunar Lander in Pictures]

"The holy grail of our company is to provide, to prove, a full-services capability — not just landing, but coming back from the moon," said Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards, who announced the new launch deal today (Oct. 1) at the Space Technology & Investment Summit in San Francisco.  

If the MX-1 nails its landing on the first mission, "we're going to be inspired to try a sample-return," Richards told Space.com. "I don't know if we'll do that on the second mission, but I sure hope we're trying it by the third mission, if all is going that well."

The two optional launches provide some insurance for Moon Express in case the first three flights don't go entirely according to plan, Richards said.

The contract puts Moon Express in position to possibly win the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million competition to land a privately funded robotic spacecraft on the moon by the end of 2017. The first team to do this — and have the craft move 1,640 feet (500 m) and beam high-definition video and images back to Earth as well — will win the $20 million grand prize. (The second team to accomplish these goals gets $5 million; another $5 million is available for meeting certain other milestones.)

Sixteen teams remain in the running for the Google Lunar X Prize, so the outcome remains very much up in the air. For example, one team, Astrobotic, signed a contract in 2011 to launch its lunar lander aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Astrobotic representatives have said they plan to launch in 2016.

READ MORE: Space.com

 

 

Netjets To Get First Citation Latitude in July 2016

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Netjets To Get First Citation Latitude in July 2016
 
Fractional ownership company NetJets has firmed up the delivery schedule for its Cessna Citation Latitude business jets, with the first of the midsize type set to enter its operation in July 2016.

The Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary – the world’s largest operator of business aircraft – placed an order in 2012 for 25 Latitudes as part a multi-billion dollar overhaul of its 500-strong fleet.

It says the aircraft, worth $16 million each, will be absorbed into its US and European fleets over a two-year period.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 September 2015 16:31
 

Airbus A350 XWB Tours US

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Airbus A350 XWB Tours US

The Airbus A350 XWB has kicked off the US leg of its tour of the Americas in Atlanta, Georgia.  

The demo tour features a flight test version of the aircraft, which Airbus is showingoff to investors and airlines in Atlanta, Newark, Chicago and Milwaukee.

Airbus XWB landing

READ MORE: Atwonline.com

Last Updated on Wednesday, 15 July 2015 02:04
 

Easter Island Heads; They Have Bodies! - Now An Even Greater Mystery!

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Easter Island Heads; They Have Bodies! - Now An Even Greater Mystery!

 

A fully transparent solar cell that could make every window and screen a power source

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A Fully Transparent Solar Cell That Could Make

Every Window And Screen A Power Source

 

Researchers at Michigan State University have created a fully transparent solar concentrator, which could turn any window or sheet of glass (like your smartphone’s screen) into a photovoltaic solar cell.

 

Unlike other “transparent” solar cells that we’ve reported on in the past, this one really is transparent, as you can see in the photos throughout this story.

According to Richard Lunt, who led the research, the team are confident that the transparent solar panels can be efficiently deployed in a wide range of settings, from “tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader.”

Scientifically, a transparent solar panel is something of an oxymoron. Solar cells, specifically the photovoltaic kind, make energy 

by absorbing photons (sunlight) and converting them into electrons (electricity). If a material is transparent, however, by definition it means that all of the light passes through the medium to strike the back of your eye. This is why previous transparent solar cells have actually only been partially transparent — and, to add insult to injury, they usually they cast a colorful shadow too.

 

The organic salts absorb UV and infrared, and emit infrared — processes that occur outside of the visible spectrum, so that it appears transparent.To get around this limitation, the Michigan State researchers use a slightly different technique for gathering sunlight. Instead of trying to create a transparent photovoltaic cell (which is nigh impossible), they use atransparent luminescent solar concentrator (TLSC). The TLSC consists of organic salts that absorb specific non-visible wavelengths of ultraviolet and infrared light, which they then luminesce (glow) as another wavelength of infrared light (also non-visible). This emitted infrared light is guided to the edge of plastic, where thin strips of conventional photovoltaic solar cell convert it into electricity. [Research paper: DOI: 10.1002/adom.201400103 - "Near-Infrared Harvesting Transparent Luminescent Solar Concentrators"]If you look closely, you can see a couple of black strips along the edges of plastic block. Otherwise, though, the active organic material — and thus the bulk of the solar panel — is highly transparent. (Read: Solar singlet fission bends the laws of physics to boost solar power efficiency by 30%.) Michigan’s TLSC currently has an efficiency of around 1%, but they think 5% should be possible. Non-transparent luminescent concentrators (which bathe the room in colorful light) max out at around 7%.On their own these aren’t huge figures, but on a larger scale — every window in a house or office block — the numbers quickly add up. Likewise, while we’re probably not talking about a technology that can keep your smartphone or tablet running indefinitely, replacing your device’s display with a TLSC could net you a few more minutes or hours of usage on a single battery charge.The researchers are confident that the technology can be scaled all the way from large industrial and commercial applications, down to consumer devices, while remaining “affordable.” So far, one of the larger barriers to large-scale adoption of solar power is the intrusive and ugly nature of solar panels — obviously, if we can produce large amounts of solar power from sheets of glass and plastic that look like normal sheets of glass and plastic, then that would be big.Source: http://www.offgridquest.com/extra/a-fully-transparent-solar-cell-that-coul
Last Updated on Saturday, 06 March 2021 14:47
 


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