lockheed

The U.S. Department of Energy has given two grants totaling $1 million to Lockheed Martin to determine the feasibility of tapping into the ocean's hot and cold spots to save energy.

Instead of looking at how to harness wave and tidal power, as the Seadog and Oyster projects have been doing, the grants require Lockheed Martin's scientists and engineers to determine if they could take advantage of the ocean's varying temperatures.

The first part of the grant is to develop software and tools for determining which thermal areas of the ocean have the greatest potential for … Read more

The race to develop an unmanned aircraft that can stay aloft for five years at a stretch has entered its second phase, where the prize is a $155 million DARPA contract to build a small-scale demonstrator model.

The project, called Vulture II, will pit three defense contractor teams--Aurora Flight Sciences, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin--against one another and the clock for the right to build a small-scale, working version of a high-altitude, electric-propelled UAV capable of remaining aloft and on station for three months.

The Vulture is expected to serve as an electronic sensor and military communications platform, and … Read more

FORT HOOD, Texas--Click briefly through the parade of cautionary fireballs that make-up the Iraq/Convoy category on any video-sharing Web site and the message is clear; in war, people get killed making deliveries.

The military wants to do something about that--namely, get soldiers out of the driver's seat. To help move things in the right direction, a Robotics Rodeo at the sprawling Army installation here in the heart of Texas gave some companies a chance to show what they have to offer. The rodeo, which ended Thursday, was sponsored by the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and … Read more

With retirement of the space shuttle program looming next year and just nine flights remaining, NASA managers announced Thursday the first major wave of job losses, saying 160 contract workers would face layoffs Friday, the first of some 900 jobs that will be cut between now and the end of September.

"They are primarily manufacturing team members," shuttle Program Manager John Shannon said. "We have delivered the last pieces of hardware that those team members produce and we don't keep them on the (payroll). And that is in order to get our budget down to the … Read more

Updated at 8:12 a.m. PDT March 30 with details on the CityZenn and Zennergy prototypes from Zenn Motor.

Zenn Motor is expanding its lineup to include a highway-legal electric car and an all-electric drivetrain for other automakers, the company announced Thursday.

Zenn (for "zero emission no noise") has been working on these particular products for some time.

In 2007, the company offered the public a low-speed Zenn car with a range of 35 miles per charge that was limited to the 25mph legal limit for cars in a certain class. In 2008, it improved its all-electric … Read more

The Department of Defense's $1 trillion-plus plan to build and deliver multiple versions of the Joint Strike Force (JSF) aircraft to multiple customers is behind schedule, over budget, and upside down, according to a report from the Government Accounting Office (PDF).

Upside down because the military is accelerating procurement of operational aircraft before it has even taken delivery of test units, according to the non-partisan GAO.

"Procuring large numbers of production jets while still working to deliver test jets and mature manufacturing processes does not seem prudent," the report states.

The JSF program, personified by the F-35 … Read more

ORLANDO, Fla.--I'm sitting at the controls of an F-35 Lightning II and my missiles are locked in on a couple of nearby enemy fighters.

I fire twice, and off shoot a couple of missiles, screaming toward their target. Victory is mine. As long as I don't lose control of my own fighter and go plummeting into the ground.

I grip the controls and struggle back toward the aircraft carrier I launched from. The voice in my left ear becomes a little alarmed as I approach the landing strip and just about as I'm about to cartwheel … Read more

Lockheed Martin said this week it has reached an important milestone in the development of one piece of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System (PDF) puzzle: an interceptor missile capable of taking out multiple enemy ICBM warheads.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Multiple Kill Vehicle-L would be launched as a single interceptor equipped with a multiple-kill payload that doesn't bother with the single warhead--it goes after an entire "threat cluster" instead.

It's designed to destroy not only the enemy's re-entry vehicle (intercontinental ballistic missile) but also all the warheads it may contain, … Read more

The New Mexico Spaceport Authority, which runs Spaceport America, announced Tuesday that Lockheed Martin has committed to conducting operations at the facility near Las Cruces, N.M.

According to the release, Lockheed has been involved with Spaceport for some time already, having tested new launch technologies. It said that last December, Lockheed and launch provider UP Aerospace carried out a "small demonstration launch to test proprietary technology."

Now, Lockheed has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Spaceport to conduct ongoing testing at the facility.