Hasta La Gadget!

Access to steady supplies of clean water is getting more and more difficult in the developing world, especially as demand skyrockets. In response, many countries have turned to the sea for potable fluids but existing reverse osmosis plants rely on complicated processes that are expensive and energy-intensive to operate. Good thing, engineers at Lockheed Martin have just announced a newly-developed salt filter that could reduce desalinization energy costs by 99 percent. More »

I receive a terse invite from Lockheed Martin that asks me to take a “glimpse into the future,” but it doesn’t mention whose future it is. I could write about what I know of the American defense contractor on the back of a postage stamp, but a cursory Google search fills in some of the blanks. The company reportedly receives around 7 percent of the US military budget on its own – and with that, my imagination runs rampant about what I’m likely to see. Dreaming of playing with laser pistols, intelligent cyborgs and giant robots, I tell them I’m coming.

A few days later, I turn up at the Honourable Artillery Company in London’s glitzy financial district, a miniature castle that’s dwarfed by the gleaming skyscrapers that surround it. In a way, the landscape is telling, since the occupants of those buildings can shoulder some of the blame for the current financial crisis – while across the street, Lockheed Martin is preparing its cost-cutting response.

Two hulking vehicles guard the entrance off a small courtyard, and through a window I see a plush room full of red velvet and leather, stuffed with computers and pensive, well-dressed operators. I wonder if I’m being vetted as I amble inside, my now-sodden socks and matted hair marking me out as unthreatening — just as long as I promise not to get out my camera. As I’m ushered inside and the tour begins, I’m expecting to see jetpacks and robots, but the reality is much different. Not even this industry is immune to the world’s financial problems, and my tour would reveal that its future lies decidedly in our past.

Continue reading What’s Past is Prologue: a look inside the future of Lockheed Martin

Filed under: Robots, Science, Alt

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Amidst heavy criticism—and in the middle of a Presidential race that will be key to its future—the beleaguered F-35 Lightning II program keeps marching on: Lockheed Martin has completed the fighter’s first weapons test, successfully dropping a 2,000-pound bomb from its left internal weapons bay over the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake’s test range. More »

NASA has always used the desert as its own personal playground, and we’d imagine that its team had a blast in Arizona yesterday, as a mock parachute compartment of the Orion spacecraft was dropped from 25,000 feet above Earth. The dart-shaped object experienced free fall for 5,000 feet, at which point, drogue chutes were deployed at 20,000 feet. This was then followed by pilot chutes, which then activated the main chutes. As you’d imagine, these things are monsters: the main parachutes — three in all — each measure 116 feet wide and weigh more than 300 pounds. Better yet, the mission was successful.

Naturally, all of this is in preparation for Orion’s first test flight — currently scheduled for 2014 — where the unmanned craft will travel 15 times further than the ISS and jam through space at 20,000 mph before returning to Earth. Yesterday’s outing is merely one in a series of drop tests, and yes, it’s important to remove any unknowns from the situation: eventually, humans will be along for the ride.

Filed under: Science, Alt

NASA completes successful parachute drop simulation for Orion spacecraft originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Aug 2012 07:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve seen the action flick Act of Valor, you may remember the small handheld UAV that was used to keep an eye on enemy placement. Lockheed Martin makes a little UAV called the Stalker Unmanned Ariel System that is similar to the UAV used in that movie. Typically, the little Stalker is powered by a battery and has a relatively short usable time before the battery runs out of power.

Lockheed Martin has announced that in cooperation with a company called LaserMotive, the Stalker has been able to fly with no stops for over 48 hours. The way Lockheed Martin and LaserMotive pulled this off is very cool. The Stalker was fitted with proprietary equipment to be able to gather power from a laser beam as it flew.

The test was conducted indoors in a wind tunnel and the Stalker flew him for over 48 hours. Lockheed says that the test could have continued and was only stopped because the aircraft had passed the endurance goals the team set. In fact, at the end of the test, the little aerial vehicle had more power in its battery than it did when the test started.