navy

The Navy recently took a big step closer to getting the X-47B robot stealth plane flying off aircraft carriers when it landed a Hornet fighter jet on the USS Eisenhower using unmanned systems.

The takeoff and landing in the Atlantic of the F/A-18D Hornet on July 2 used systems developed under the Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) program. The X-47B, made by Northrop Grumman, is designed to use carriers as its base.

Carrier landings are one of the trickiest feats in aviation. While two airmen were aboard the Hornet, the avionics and software were the same as those that will be used in the X-47B.

The bat-winged stealth plane had its maiden flight in February and is designed to fly along pre-programmed paths and at "high subsonic" top speed, far faster than the Predator and Reaper drones. It will also have a much greater weapons payload of 4,500 pounds. … Read more

The United States Navy will soon launch a Web-based wargame aimed at helping fight at-sea piracy.

The game, called Massive Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet (MMOWGLI, for short), will launch on May 16. However, it's not your typical MMO, like World of Warcraft. According to the Navy, more than 1,000 players will be charged with solving "real-world problems facing the Navy."

"MMOWGLI is an online game designed to find and collectively grow breakthrough ideas to some of the Navy's most complex problems--those 21st century threats that demand new forms of collaboration and truly … Read more

Sometimes our eyes are wide shut. In moments when we think we see one thing, we see quite another.

This often happens when our emotions are high and our thinking faculties subdued.

Sympathy, therefore, must be ladled toward the German news station N24, which was extremely keen to tell the world about last week's killing of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team Six.

Unfortunately, in its haste to offer a SEAL logo, someone at the station actually mustered the logo of the "Star Trek" Maquis Special Operations Seals Team VI--a bunch of … Read more

"Fire the laser!" may sound like something straight out of "Star Wars," but that phrase could one day be common on U.S. Navy ships.

Northrop Grumman and the Office of Naval Research recently concluded a series of successful solid-state laser defense firing tests aboard the decommissioned Spruance-class destroyer USS Paul F. Foster (a remotely driven self-defense test ship). The Maritime Laser Demonstrator zapped away at an assortment of objectives at the Pacific Ocean Test Range off the central California coast, including land-based targets and remotely driven small boats that traveled at various speeds.

It was the first time a laser of such strength had been fired from a moving ship at sea. This is also the first system to be integrated with a Navy ship's radar and navigation system, ensuring a much higher level of accuracy. The U.S. Navy collaborated with the Office of the Secretary of Defense's High Energy Joint Technology Office and the Army's Joint High Powered Solid State Laser program to bring this once-imagined weapon to life. … Read more

The U.S. Navy demonstrates how it can set a boat on fire remotely using a laser. Which is super awesome as a video, and slightly terrifying as a demonstration of future military capabilities. Also, Steve Jobs finally agrees to an authorized biography, Sony blinks in the George Hotz PS3 jailbreaking lawsuit, smart phone users are wasting hundreds of dollars a year, and Facebook is working on its latest venture: the Socialist Network. --Molly

Philadelphia's revitalization project of its Navy Yard and surrounding waterfront property will also include solar storage, according to International Battery.

The Allentown, Penn.-based battery manufacturer says its large format lithium ion energy storage system (ESS) will be used on a 2,700 square-foot building as part of the Philadelphia Energy Innovation Hub.

"The Energy Innovation Hub will include a live demonstration of a microgrid with a 2,700 square foot net-zero energy home. International Battery will provide Sunverge with an 8.2 kilowatt-hour Lithium Iron Phosphate battery pack for use in the residential SIS [Solar Integration System],&… Read more

Retired U.S. Navy sonar experts have helped create a novel portable device to detect, diagnose, and monitor strokes. The brain-imaging system uses a simple headset and laptop--and decades of submarine technology--to home in on brain activity that signifies trouble.

The headset is equipped with six highly sensitive accelerometers. Instead of peering out through the rounded bow of a submarine, they are oriented inward toward the brain.

The brain's machinations (veins expanding and contracting, aneurysms wobbling) each have their own unique vibrations that cause slight skull pulsations. The headset sensors measure these movements to look for irregular blood flow in much the same way submarines measure motion and generate signals that are processed, analyzed, and matched to objects.

Data on the type and location of brain vascular abnormalities is then rapidly sent to the PC.

"As sonar sorts out whales and other objects from vessels, the device sorts out cerebral abnormalities such as aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations (AVMs, an abnormal connection between veins and arteries), ischemic strokes, and traumatic brain injury from normal variations in physiology," said Dr. Kieran J. Murphy, director of research and deputy chief of radiology at the University of Toronto and University Health Network in Toronto, in a release (PDF).

Murphy is presenting trial data on the device--developed by Mountain View, Calif.-based Jan Medical--at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 36th Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago this week. … Read more

Almost from the very beginning seven decades ago, flying wings have been something of a specialty for the aircraft company founded by Jack Northrop.

The 1940s saw the XB-35 experimental aircraft. The late 1980s brought the B-2 bomber.

Now Northrop Grumman is pushing ahead with the X-47B UCAS (for unmanned combat air system), a prototype going through its fledgling stage en route to the goal of demonstrating in 2013 that an unmanned, tailless, strike fighter-size aircraft can land on and take off from an aircraft carrier.

Earlier this month, the X-47B made just the second and third flights (from dry … Read more

U.S. Navy officials in Japan announced early today that they have repositioned their 7th Fleet after 17 Navy personnel aboard three helicopters tested positive for low levels of contamination from a radioactive plume that rose above the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group were roughly 100 miles northeast of the plant at the time of the explosion, but three helicopters had flown closer to help with relief efforts, reported the fleet's public affairs office.

Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis told The New York Times that the levels of … Read more