At a little over 11.10am Wednesday, a 13 metre-long, 19-ton missile took off from the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Island launch complex off the coast of Odisha. Three minutes and 10 seconds later, it struck the 6,900mm-wide heart of a Microstat-R satellite — orbiting 268km above the earth — over the Bay of Bengal, blowing it to bits. India launched the satellite almost two months ago to the day, on January 29.
A little over an hour later, at 12.20 pm, after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a rare address to the nation that with the success of Mission Shakti, India had become only the fourth member of an exclusive club of nations — with the US, Russia and China — to have anti-satellite missile capability.
Soon after the missile struck the satellite, Modi and national security adviser Ajit Doval were informed by Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) chief Satheesh Reddy and Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chief K Sivan over the phone, using a pre-decided coded message.
German automakers are set to spend $60 billion on self driving and electric car tech.
GM is investing $300M in a Michigan autoplant for EV and autonomous cars.
GM is doubling the size of its Cruise self driving car division.
A new nighttime camera will improve the productivity of self driving trucks.
Nuro will start delivering groceries with its self driving cars in Houston.
Proterra's self driving buses will leave a place for the driver.
Stanford's latest self driving car prototype handles the unexpected better.
Tesla is being accused of shifting the goal posts on declaring its cars able to fully self drive and that 'full self drive' is not what you think it is.
Tesla has angered self driving car experts with its claims they are offering a truly self driving vehicle.
Some are countering back the experts are missing the point.
A dashcam showed a Tesla steering for a center lane divide again.
Tesla is suing a former employee that left and went to XiaoPeng Motors, a self driving company, for supposedly stealing 300k lines of Autopilot code.
Toyota has been testing if cameras can map cities for self driving cars.
Toyota will also test its self driving car tech in an Nvidia's virtual environment.
Trump apparently wants nothing to do with the 'crazy' self driving cars.
Uber will not face criminal charges for the death of the homeless woman in Arizona. 10 lessons from the lethal accident. One year later, self driving cars soldier on.
he Missile Defense Agency has offered new details about plans to develop a science fiction-sounding space-based neutral particle beam weapon to disable or destroy incoming ballistic missiles. The goal is to have a prototype system ready for a test in orbit by 2023, an ambitious schedule to demonstrate that the technology has progressed to a more useful state from when the U.S. military last explored and then abandoned the concept nearly three decades ago.
The U.S. military’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2020 asks for $34 million in funding for the neutral particle beam program, or NPB, according to documents released on Mar. 18, 2019. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) wants a total of $380 million through 2023 fiscal cycle for development of the directed energy weapon. Defense One, citing unnamed U.S. officials, had been first to report the existence of the plan on Mar. 14, 2019. It’s also worth noting that Congress set out a goal of testing of at least one space-based missile defense system prototype by 2022 and the deployment of “an operational capability at the earliest practicable date” in the annual defense policy bill for the 2018 Fiscal Year.
Kratos' XQ-58A Valkyrie was to make its first flight. It did and it was beautiful. The intent is to make the Valkyrie, a Loyal Wingman, where a flock of them could be managed by an single F-35. In the process, Kratos stole Boeing's thunder.
A Dutch magazine claimed USAF F-117s conducted airstrikes in Syria. The Drive semi convincingly argues the F-117 returning to combat for strikes in Syria were unnecessary because the US gov has at least 8 stealthy Avenger drones capable of conducting strikes.
The USAF may make the KC-Z tanker a drone with a podded refueling boon.
To great fanfare, in May 2016, Russia hosted the third ASEAN-Russia Summit at the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Commemorating the 20th anniversary of Russia’s acceptance as an ASEAN dialog partner, this summit was intended to give new impetus to longstanding efforts by Russia and Southeast Asia to forge closer economic and security ties. Defying efforts by the West to isolate Russia, leaders from all ten ASEAN member states attended the summit.[1]Despite having recently skipped several high-level ASEAN summits, this time President Putin led the Russian delegation himself. He also met separately with the leaders of all ten ASEAN states. After the summit, Putin proclaimed that the two sides had reached agreement “on building a strategic partnership over the long term.” Demonstrating that this was not just mere rhetoric, the two sides also announced a raft of new measures during the summit, on topics ranging from security relations to closer political and economic ties. However, Russia’s ongoing Sino-centric focus, ASEAN’s limited ability to act collectively, and Moscow’s preference for bilateral relations will continue to predominate in its overall relations with the region.
The director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center said March 5 that the agency is “reassessing” the 2020 launch date for the first flight of its Space Launch System, suggesting that the mission may face further delays.
During a question-and-answer session at a Space Transportation Association luncheon here, Jody Singer said the launch readiness date for Exploration Mission (EM) 1 is still in 2020, but did not give a more precise estimate of the date even as NASA reviews possible changes to it.
“We do know that we are reassessing those dates to see if that date will work, based on making sure we have the vehicle ready, and ready to go fly safely,” she said. “We are assessing that date. Our launch readiness date is still 2020, and we’re doing everything within our power to make sure that we support that.”
Singer didn’t identify the specific issues with EM-1 that prompted the reassessment, but NASA officials have previously said that the core stage of the SLS, along with the European-built service module for the Orion spacecraft that SLS will launch, were the items on the critical path for the mission.
The United States may or may not be getting a Space Force, but while President Trump is all-in on the creation of a new branch of the U.S. Military—and blowing up the military bureaucracy—it’s worth keeping in mind other countries have their military space programs. A recent DIA report shines a light on how the U.S. views these programs, particularly those of Russia and China, neither of which seem particularly threatening—for now anyway.
Australia and Boeing announced a new Loyal Wingman aircraft called the BATS. It is designed to be built in Australia without American components so it can be exported pretty much anywhere without American approvals. First flight is expected to be next year.
India's HAL has shown off its concept.
Kratos' XQ-58A Valkyrie was to make its first flight. It did and it was beautiful. The intent is to make the Valkyrie a Loyal Wingman where a flock of them could be managed by an single F-35. In the process, Kratos stole Boeing's thunder. 6th Generation Fighters:
The USAF head of acquisition seems unhappy with the answer the USAF came back with about what its next gen fighter will be and seems to want to derail the effort. Analysts are stating the US Navy needs its 6th gen fighter and unmanned assets for its carriers to stay relevant.
Is it better for India to order F-16s, ahem F-21s or join the Tempest project?
MTU Aero Engines may join the Franco-German FCAS project.
Dassault is warning against turning the FrancoGerman FCAS into another Eurofighter. AMCA:
India's indigenous stealth fighter has supposedly begun the detailed design phase.
Su-57:
The Russians will only take delivery of ONE Su-57 in 2019 and ONE in 2020. Not 12 in 2019. More will not be delivered until the improved engine has been perfected.
Russia is trying to convince the Indians to buy the Su-57 again. J-20:
A Dutch magazine claimed F-117s conducted airstrikes in Syria. The Drive semi convincingly argues the F-117 returning to combat for strikes in Syria were unnecessary because the US gov has at least 8 stealthy Avenger drones capable of conducting strikes.
B-2:
What a shot! The B-2 gets the full hawaii experience.
US Generals are coming out strongly against the F-15X buy and advocating buying more F-35s.
The USAF's F-35As apparently clobbered the older fighters at the Red Flag exercise pretty handily.
Watch the F-35A demo team at Luke AFB. They debuted new aerobatics.
The USAF isn't worried by the F-35As gun being inaccurate.
The USAF conducted an exercise where they did forward refueling for the F-35A.
The USAF is trying to fix ALIS...by moving it to the cloud: *head desk*
USMC's deployment of the F-35B on the USS Essex has ended and hints at new roles for the amphibious group. The F-35Bs conducted over 100 combat missions.
Last week, NASA had an industry day for its recently released Human Landing System Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). The space agency is seeking private participation in the development of a landing system capable of delivering astronauts to the surface of the moon by 2028.
According to US sources, quoted by CNBC, Russia conducted a test of the Nudol ASAT system on December 23, 2018. The missile was launched from a mobile launcher from a test site in Plesetsk. The launch complex used to test the Nudol missile was found near the site used for Thyklon space launches.
That would be the second Nudol test in 2018 - the first one took place in April 2018. CNBC also quotes a source as saying that it was "the seventh overall test of the system." There were indeed three launches in 2014-2015 (one of them unsuccessful) and two in 2016 - in May and in December. Apparently there were no launches in 2017.
