alliance

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--A powerful United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket roared to life today and launched NASA's solar-powered Juno space probe on a five-year voyage to Jupiter, the first step in a $1.1 billion mission to look for clues about the origins of the solar system in the hidden heart of its largest planet.

"What we're really going after are some of the most fundamental questions of our solar system--how Jupiter formed, how it evolved, what really happened early in the solar system that eventually led to all of us and the terrestrial planets," said Scott Bolton, the principal investigator. "These are really basic questions: who are we, where did we come from, how did we get here?

"We're kind of going after this recipe of how planets are made. We're getting the ingredients of Jupiter, we're going to understand what the structure is like inside, how was it built, and that will give us guidance as to what happened in that early time that eventually led to us."

The towering 197-foot-tall Atlas 5, equipped with five solid-fuel strap-on boosters for extra power, ignited with a ground-shaking roar at 12:25 p.m. EDT, generating 2.5 million pounds of thrust and instantly pushing the spacecraft away from launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It was only the second launch of a five strap-on Atlas 5, the most powerful version offered by United Launch Alliance.

Liftoff was delayed 51 minutes to resolve two technical issues and to make sure a boat that strayed into the launch danger zone cleared the area.

Climbing away atop a brilliant plume of fiery exhaust, the rocket accelerated through the sound barrier 34 seconds after liftoff, arcing away to the east and putting on a spectacular lunchtime show for tourists and area residents. The strap-on boosters burned out and peeled off about a minute later and the first stage shut down and fell away as planned four and a half minutes after launch.

The rocket's hydrogen-fueled Centaur upper stage then carried out a six-minute burn to boost the spacecraft into a temporary parking orbit. A second nine-minute Centaur firing 31 minutes later accelerated Juno to 25,000 mph, or 7 miles per second--interplanetary escape velocity--and three minutes later, the 4-ton spacecraft separated from the Centaur to fly on its own.… Read more

Boeing will use United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets for initial test flights of the company's proposed CST-100 manned spacecraft, a seven-seat capsule being developed for commercial missions to and from government and private-sector space stations in low-Earth orbit, company officials announced today.

John Elbon, vice president and program manager of Boeing commercial crew transportation systems, said four test flights of the CST-100 spacecraft are envisioned, assuming continued NASA funding, including an on-the-launch-pad abort test in 2014 that will not require a booster.

The other three flights will use a version of the Atlas 5 that includes one solid-fuel … Read more

Smells are strongly tied in with memories. There's the aroma of buttered popcorn from your first date with your spouse. The fragrance of futility as your beloved old car finally coughed and died in a cloud of smoke. Ah, it's like it happened only yesterday.

Now you can harness the power of perfume with Whiffers, rubber wristbands aimed at the student population. Think of them as silly bands for academics.

Alliance Rubber Company lays claim to inventing the world's first imprinted wrist bands, so you can thank those folks for the gazillions of colors and causes being worn as accessories.

You may soon start noticing a faint odor of lavender, peppermint, or spearmint wafting from wrists. Alliance suggests using the peppermint to boost concentration and the lavender to relax and curb test anxiety.… Read more

The Seattle Seahawks stadium, Qwest Field Event Center, is adding solar panels to its roof.

The solar arrays from Fremont, Calif.-based Solyndra are racks of thin-film CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, and selenide) solar cells shaped like tubes. The racks will cover approximately 2.5 acres, about 80 percent, of Qwest Field, Solyndra announced yesterday.

Solyndra is known for its tube-shape solar cells that capture direct, diffuse, and reflected sunlight throughout the day without the need for a rotating mechanism, the method often used to maximize the efficiency of flat solar panels.

The arrays for Qwest Field will come from Solyndra's state-of-the-art solar manufacturing plant in California, which was built in part with a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. The plant is a showcase for U.S. green-tech manufacturing: It employs over 1,000 people operating robotics manufacturing tools as a way to curb production costs and compete against inexpensive solar panels from China while keeping jobs in the U.S.… Read more

The newly formed Green Sports Alliance will promote eco-friendly practices for professional sports teams and their stadiums.

The alliance, announced this week, was created by team owner Paul Allen and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Allen, who co-founded Microsoft, owns the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers and co-owns the Seattle Sounders.

The Environmental Protection Agency and six pro sports leagues are endorsing the effort: Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL), the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), and Major League Soccer (MLS).

Six teams, including … Read more

Connecting to public Wi-Fi hot spots can be a challenge, but the Wi-Fi Alliance is hoping to ease some of the pain.

Responsible for certifying Wi-Fi products and technology, the Wi-Fi Alliance said yesterday that it's working on a new certification program that should make it easier to access and use public hot spots. Various members of the alliance, including service providers and device makers, have already formalized the requirements needed to test such a certification program.

Once in place, the new hot spot program would offer several benefits to Wi-Fi users.

Computers, phones, and other connected gadgets would … Read more

More people are trying to tap into unsecure but easily available Wi-Fi networks around them, according to the results of a poll from the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Conducted by Wakefield Research in conjunction with the Wi-Fi Alliance, the results out this week found that 32 percent of those polled admit to trying to hop onto an unsecure Wi-Fi network that wasn't theirs. Some say they've done it only once while others reveal they've done it many times. That percentage compares with the 18 percent who admitted to borrowing a Wi-Fi connection according to a December 2008 poll.

Though … Read more

The Wi-Fi Alliance is launching a campaign to urge consumers to configure routers and devices to use WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2) on all their wireless Wi-Fi equipment.

"Wi-Fi security has gone through some evolutions over the years and WP2, which has been around now for a few years, is the latest and greatest in Wi-Fi security," Kelly Davis-Kelner of the Wi-Fi Alliance said in this podcast interview.

WPA2, which offers government- and enterprise-grade security, is available in all products that the alliance has anointed as "WiFi Certified." The security standard replaces the original WPA and … Read more

The FBI is on the hunt for the hackers responsible for a recent wave of cyberattacks launched in defense of WikiLeaks.

FBI agents yesterday executed more than 40 search warrants in the United States as part of their ongoing investigation. Pointing to the group Anonymous, which has taken responsibility for the attacks, the FBI said that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults were facilitated by software the group makes available as free downloads.

Late last year, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and other companies were hit by DDoS attacks triggered by activists in support of WikiLeaks after the companies cut off … Read more