Tag: science

Northrop Grumman Solid Rocket Boosters aid first ULA Vulcan Rocket launch

January 8, 2024 / WIL BALDWIN

Magna, Utah, January 8, 2024 – Two of Northrop Grumman Corporation’s (NYSE: NOC) extended length, 63-inch-diameter Graphite Epoxy Motors (GEM 63XL) solid rocket boosters helped power the inaugural flight of United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan Rocket and the first certification (Cert-1) mission.

The GEM 63XL boosters are the longest monolithic, single-cast solid rocket boosters ever manufactured and flown.
The launch represents the first flight of the GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters.
The boosters delivered more than 900,000 pounds of thrust, nearly two-thirds of the vehicle’s total thrust at lift-off.

The Cert-1 mission carried two payloads, one that will deliver science and technology to the lunar surface, including Astrobotic’s first Peregrine Lunar Lander, Peregrine Mission One, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program and the second was Celestis’ Memorial Spaceflights deep-space Voyager mission.

Northrop Grumman began development of the fifth-generation GEM 63XL strap-on boosters in 2015, under a cooperative agreement with ULA to provide additional lift capability for the Vulcan launch vehicle. The motor was qualified for flight in 2020 via static test firing at the company’s Promontory, Utah, test facilities. In June 2022, ULA awarded Northrop Grumman a multi-year contract worth more than $2 billon for increased production of its GEM boosters, which will support Amazon’s Project Kuiper and additional ULA customers.

Northrop Grumman has supplied rocket propulsion to ULA and its heritage companies for various launch vehicles since 1964. The GEM 63XL is an extended length variation of the GEM 63 boosters, which have supported eight Atlas V launches with 27 boosters to date.

The company’s Commerce, Calif., facility also manufactured the Vulcan launch vehicle’s hydrazine diaphragm propellant tank, which feeds the Centaur upper stage Reaction Control System to provide guidance and control during the later stages of launch. This tank is a more powerful successor to the ones previously supplied by Northrop Grumman for the Atlas V and Delta IV programs.

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Alstom India set to onboard 700 young engineers under flagship Young Engineering Graduate Program of 2023

July 4, 2023 / WIL BALDWIN

Bengaluru, India, 4 July 2023 – Alstom (OTC: ALSMY) , global leader in smart and sustainable mobility, launches its flagship Young Engineering Graduate Program (YEGP) 2023 with a target to onboard 700 young graduate engineers in India over the next two months. This is the highest ever intake under this initiative in the country. YEGP is a key element of Alstom’s India hiring strategy since 2015, aimed at developing young engineers talent for Indian and global business needs. Out of 700 hires, 58% are women engineers in line with the company’s gender diversity focus. Further, the campus hiring has been done from 54 universities across 26 states ranging from several Northeastern states to Gujarat and from Jammu & Kashmir to Kerala in tandem with Alstom’s regional diversity promise. There is a 2x increase vis-à-vis 30 hires from the last year (2022) from the North-eastern states alone.

The 14 days program focuses on providing an immersive and engaging experience to all the YEGs, while helping them get a better understanding of Alstom’s business, operations and functions through close interactions with the leadership team. The candidates are being onboarded as Graduate Engineer Trainees & Post Graduate Trainees will be enabled through structured induction, technical, functional and on the job trainings. They will be taking up roles such as, Application Engineers, Train Control Engineer, Train Design Engineer, Testing & Commissioning Engineer etc. and will be working across Alstom’s six manufacturing facilities and four engineering centers catering to domestic and international markets.

Since its inception, more than 1800 engineering graduates have been recruited under this program in partnership with leading technical/engineering colleges and universities across India. In terms of engineering disciplines, the hires come with engineering specializations in Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics, Instrumentation, Computer Science, Industrial, Mechatronics, etc.

Alstom has also retained its place as the first and only organisation in India to be certified as a Top Employer in the mobility sector consecutively for the third time this year. This is a testament to Alstom’s continued commitment towards creating a better workplace through excellent people practices. To ensure the integration and development of its young recruits, the company counts on a strong internal learning culture. Alstom India is leading globally in terms of learning hours. Through Alstom University, an online learning management system, employees can learn about various subjects for their desired roles at their own pace.

Rolls-Royce Secures UK Funding for Innovative Naval Autonomy Technology

February 26, 2021 / WIL BALDWIN

Rolls-Royce (London: RR.L) has been awarded funding by the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) to further develop and demonstrate the Artificial Chief Engineer^® technology – an autonomous machinery control system which allows Naval vessels to undertake long endurance missions with less human interaction.

Developed by Rolls-Royce, Artificial Chief Engineer^® is a critical enabler for autonomous missions by acting as the equivalent of the engineering department responsible for the health and the operation of an unmanned vessel’s machinery. Navies intend to increase their use of optionally-manned and unmanned vessels to project power further for less cost by reducing reliance on manpower, allowing higher-risk or longer-endurance missions, and by lowering the procurement and operating costs of future platforms.

The funding to continue the development, has been awarded under the UK MOD’s Defence and Security Accelerator Intelligent Ship Phase Two programme, which is used to de-risk and evaluate technologies and approaches to enhance the armed forces’ technical advantage.

Rapid growth in automation, autonomy, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) has prompted the need to investigate how human-machine teaming can effectively take place. This 16-month programme aims to investigate how effective human-AI collaboration can be best exploited to improve decision-making and planning within complex operating environments.

Artificial Chief Engineer is an on-board, secure, decision-making control system designed to intelligently operate the machinery of lean-manned and unmanned naval vessels. The technology makes condition-based decisions about how best to operate the machinery – including the engines, propulsion system, electrical network and fuel system – using algorithms to optimise the ship for maximum efficiency, lowest noise, top speed or to preserve damaged equipment as required by the ship’s mission. This reduces the workload of remote operators and allows increased mission and system complexity in future unmanned ship designs.

Intelligent Ship is a Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) project to develop novel and innovative technologies and concepts to facilitate the use of intelligent systems within future platforms, with potential for utilisation across defence. The aim is to de-risk and evaluate technologies and approaches to enable revolutionary future platform, fleet, and cross-domain concepts to enhance UK military advantage.

Wrapping around the Artificial Chief Engineer project will be Rolls-Royce’s Aletheia Framework^TM. This is a ground-breaking standard it has developed to ensure that before artificial intelligence is used all ethical considerations have been fully assessed, and that once an AI is deployed, its decisions are trustworthy. The Aletheia Framework is as part of a campaign led by Rolls-Royce to improve public trust in artificial intelligence so that its full potential can be realized for good across the world.

SpaceX Dragon Resupply Mission (CRS-19) Splashdown

January 10, 2020 / WIL BALDWIN

Packed with about 3,800 pounds of cargo and science, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft departed the International Space Station on Tuesday, January 7. A parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean occurred that morning just west of Baja California. A recovery team then secured Dragon on a boat for the return trip to the Port of Los Angeles, wrapping up SpaceX’s 19th resupply mission to the space station.

Filled with approximately 5,700 pounds of supplies and payloads, Dragon launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on December 5, 2019 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and arrived at the space station on December 8. The Dragon spacecraft supporting the CRS-19 mission previously supported the CRS-4 mission in September 2014 and the CRS-11 mission in June 2017. Dragon is the only spacecraft currently flying that is capable of returning significant amounts of cargo to Earth.

Boeing Rolls Out First Space Launch System Core Stage for Delivery to NASA

January 8, 2020 / WIL BALDWIN

Teams at Stennis Space Center prepare for core stage hot-fire testing ahead of Artemis I lunar mission

Boeing [NYSE: BA] today delivered the core stage of NASA’s first Space Launch System (SLS) deep space exploration rocket, moving it out of the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the agency’s Pegasus barge.

The event marks the first time a completed rocket stage has shipped out of Michoud since the end of the Apollo program. SLS Core Stage 1 is the largest single rocket stage ever built by NASA and its industry partners.

The rollout follows several weeks of final testing and check-outs after NASA’s declaration of “core stage complete” during a December 9 Artemis Day celebration at Michoud.

NASA will transport the SLS core stage to its Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, in the next few days for “Green Run” hot-fire engine tests later this year. After inspection and refurbishing for launch, the stage moves to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At Kennedy, the core stage will be integrated with the Interim Cryogenic Upper Stage (ICPS) and NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the uncrewed Artemis I mission around the moon – the first launch of a human-rated spacecraft to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

“The Boeing SLS team has worked shoulder-to-shoulder with NASA and our supplier partners to face multiple challenges with ingenuity and perseverance, while keeping safety and quality at the forefront,” said John Shannon, Boeing SLS vice president and program manager.

SLS is the world’s most powerful rocket, evolvable and built to carry astronauts and cargo farther and faster than any rocket in history. Its unmatched capabilities will deliver human-rated spacecraft, habitats and science missions to the moon, Mars and beyond as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

“We are applying what we’ve learned from development of the first core stage to accelerate work on core stages 2 and 3, already in production at Michoud, as well as the Exploration Upper Stage that will power NASA’s most ambitious Artemis missions,” said Shannon.

Northrop Grumman Solid Rocket Boosters aid first ULA Vulcan Rocket launch

Alstom India set to onboard 700 young engineers under flagship Young Engineering Graduate Program of 2023

Rolls-Royce Secures UK Funding for Innovative Naval Autonomy Technology

SpaceX Dragon Resupply Mission (CRS-19) Splashdown

Boeing Rolls Out First Space Launch System Core Stage for Delivery to NASA

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