L-3 Electron Technologies, Inc. (L-3 ETI) has received combined orders totaling nearly $1 million for the development of a high-efficiency (>50%), 600W, Ka-band communications helix traveling wave tube (TWT).
The orders, which will help enhance U.S. Air Force airborne platform communications technology, were placed by two U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) contractors. “We are pleased to be supporting AFRL and both of their high power amplifier contractors on this important development program,” said Alan Piring, L-3 ETI’s vice president of military and telecom TWT products. “Achieving 600 watts at 30 GHz with a high reliability helix TWT will enable platforms that have a high data rate requirement to close their WGS (Wideband Global SATCOM) communications links with margin and avoid the downside impact of combining multiple lower power amplifiers.”
A Helix Of A TWT Order For L-3 ETI
Moving On Up . . . at Hughes Network Systems
Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES) announced the appointment of Richard M. Lober as Defense and Intelligence Systems vice president and general manager. Lober, an industry expert in communications systems, is responsible for managing and expanding the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and intelligence programs for Hughes.
Lober has more than 20 years of experience in military and civilian communications, from design engineering to senior management, and most recently served as senior vice president and general manager of Communications and Electronics at Cubic Defense Applications, Inc. His previous experience also includes serving in the telecommunications division at the Watkins-Johnson Company, where he developed products and services for government and commercial wireless customers.
“Hughes satellite solutions, such as SATCOM-On-the-Move and the next generation SPACEWAY® 3 system, are truly redefining defense and intelligence networks, enabling secure, reliable communications,” said Lober. “I am very enthusiastic about joining Hughes and look forward to building on the success of Dan Fraley and the Hughes team to provide innovative satellite solutions for mission-critical needs.”
Lober assumes the general manager role from Dan Fraley, who retired at the end of 2008 after 31 years of service at Hughes.
Chinese In Seeker II Mode For UAV
Chinese manufacturers have engaged in active discussions with South Africa with the hope of acquiring TV video cameras and 2G thermal imaging cameras used in Denel's Seeker II unmanned air vehicle surveillance system. The top military technology China aspires to acquire from South Africa is certainly believed to be the UAV itself. China's New Era Group Corp. had several rounds of negotiations with Denel on the possibility of producing two types of Denel unmanned aerial vehicles in China. The craft were on display at the 2006 Zhuhai Air Show. China would like to obtain the technologies to assemble these two UAVs domestically. However, according to a source from the Denel Group, negotiations on the UAV deals have come to a halt and the company has decided that unless substantial progress is made on these negotiations, the company no longer wants to spend time dealing with the Chinese.
Purdue U's Terrestrial Observatory Reconstructed in Egypt
The Eqyptians will be constructing a facility modeled after Purdue University's Terrestrial Observatory which will be used to provide early warning and mitigate the effects of disasters such as epidemics, famine and flooding to be built in Egypt as part of a NATO-funded effort. Courtesy of funding is provided by NATO through its Science for Peace and Security program, which creates partnerships among alliance countries and Eastern European, or so-called Mediterranean Dialogue nations, a forum of cooperation between seven countries centered in North Africa. Photo satellite image of Purdue
"The program promotes understanding and advances education and science," said Gilbert Rochon, Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP) associate vice president for collaborative research. It also aims to yield practical results, in this case to provide meteorological and environmental data to countries within the region with the help of a powerful Geographic Information System.
Development of the Kamal Ewida Earth Observatory is being supported this year by about $78,000 from NATO. The project will receive another $315,000 in NATO funding over the next three years. Magdy Abdel Wahab, chair of the meteorology and astronomy department at Cairo University, will be the partner-country director.
"Purdue's long experience with collecting, archiving and interpreting high-resolution satellite and other remotely sensed data made for a good model," said Rochon, who heads the Purdue Terrestrial Observatory and will serve as NATO-country project director.
The project will largely recreate the Purdue Terrestrial Observatory, part of Purdue's Rosen Center for Advanced Computing, and its remote sensing and analysis capabilities in Cairo, Egypt, to help identify and track natural and human-caused disasters. In cases like earthquakes and terrorism, it might be used to assess vulnerability and assist postdisaster reconstruction.
"For example, the information generated could help in planning for restoring power or repairing buildings after a quake," said Rochon. He is working with Purdue colleague Okan Ersoy, along with Gamal El Afandi at Al Azhar University in Cairo and Gülay Atlay at Boğaziçi University's Kandilli Observatory & Earthquake Research Institute in Istanbul, Turkey, in addition to Wahab.
Ersoy is a Purdue electrical and computer engineering professor. Part of his research focuses on remote sensing and applying machine learning and image processing techniques to get computers to analyze such data autonomously. "Using high-performance computing like that available through the Rosen Center, the system could provide nearly real-time interpretation of data and help the region react to disasters quickly," Ersoy said.
Rochon, chief scientist for the Rosen Center, said the system also might be useful for sustainable development efforts, identifying from a vantage point in space, for instance, the spread of crop-damaging locusts and helping to better focus efforts to halt it in an environmentally friendly manner.
The Purdue Terrestrial Observatory gathers masses of satellite, radar and other remote-sensing data, as well as information collected on the ground. The observatory assists researchers on campus and internationally in an interdisciplinary array of fields who mine remote-sensing data and work to develop techniques for employing remote sensing in early detection and mitigation of disasters. The center also makes data available to researchers and decision-makers from the local to national levels, and the agricultural sector, to use in Geographic Information Systems.
Zombies In Space Captured By XMM-Newton
The European Space Agency's (ESA) XMM-Newton has caught the fading glow of a tiny celestial object, revealing its rotation rate for the first time. The new information confirms this particular object as one of an extremely rare class of stellar zombie — each one the dead heart of a star that refuses to die.
There are a mere five, so-called, Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters (SGRs) known — four are in the Milky Way and one in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Each one is between 10 and 30 km across, yet contains about twice the mass of the Sun — they are the collapsed core of a large star that has exploded, collectively called neutron stars. What sets the Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters apart from other neutron stars is that they possess magnetic fields that are as much as 1000 times stronger. This has led astronomers to call them magnetars. SGR 1627-41 was discovered in 1998 by NASA’s Compton Gamma Ray Observatory when it burst into life emitting around a hundred short flares during a six-week period. It then faded before X-ray telescopes could measure its rotation rate. Thus, SGR 1627-41 was the only magnetar with an unknown period. Last summer, SGR 1627-41 flared back into life. But it was located in a region of sky that ESA’s XMM-Newton was unable to point at for another four months. This was because XMM-Newton has to keep its solar panels turned towards the Sun for power. Astronomers waited until Earth moved along its orbit, carrying XMM-Newton with it and bringing the object into view. During that time, SGR 1627-41 began fading fast. When it came into view in September 2008, thanks to the superior sensitivity of the EPIC instrument on XMM-Newton, it was still detectable.
A team of astronomers took the necessary observations and revealed that it rotates once every 2.6 seconds. “This makes it the second fastest rotating magnetar known,” says Sandro Mereghetti, INAF/Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Milan, one of the team. Theorists are still puzzling over how these objects can have such strong magnetic fields. One idea is that they are born spinning very quickly, at 2-3 milliseconds. Ordinary neutron stars are born spinning at least ten times more slowly. The rapid rotation of a new-born magnetar, combined with convection patterns in its interior, gives it a highly efficient dynamo, which builds up such an enormous field. With a rotation rate of 2.6 seconds, this magnetar must be old enough to have slowed down. Another clue to the magnetar’s age is that it is still surrounded by a supernova remnant. During the measurement of its rotation rate, XMM-Newton also detected X-rays coming from the debris of an exploded star, possibly the same one that created the magnetar. “These usually fade to invisibility after a few tens of thousand years. The fact that we still see this one means it is probably only a few thousand years old”, says Mereghetti.
(Images: XMM-Newton craft, courtesy ESA — False colour X-ray image of the sky region around SGR 1627-41 obtained with XMM-Newton. The emission indicated in red comes from the debris of an exploded massive star. It covers a region more extended than that previously deduced from radio observations, surrounding the SGR. This suggests that the exploded star was the magnetar’s progenitor. Credits: ESA/XMM-Newton/EPIC (P. Esposito et al.))
DBS + VSAT Systems Gain HEMT From Mitsubishi
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has developed a Ka-band plastic package, low noise, GaAs high electron mobility transistor (HEMT), the MGF4963BL, which is highly suitable for low noise amplifiers in 18-20GHz band direct broadcast satellite (DBS) reception systems and very small aperture terminal (VSAT) systems. Shipment will start on February 25, 2009.
Satellite communication systems have traditionally used mainly Ku-band DBS systems with a downlink of 12GHz and an uplink of 14GHz. With the recent development and spread of high-speed data links and HD broadcasting, increased attention is being paid to Ka-band DBS systems, which are more suitable for high-speed and high-volume data communication with a downlink of 20GHz and an uplink of 30GHz. Especially in North America, the service area for DBS systems that deliver high definition TV (HDTV) content is expanding.
In broadcast satellite reception systems, a reception converter inside the antenna receives 20GHz waves from satellites and converts them into 1GHz band intermediate-frequency waves to be sent to the tuner. HEMTs are used in low noise amplifiers for these reception converters. In the first stage of low noise amplifiers, where low noise performance is required, ceramic package HEMTs are typically used due to their high performance, despite their high price. However, with the spread of HDTV content delivered via Ka band DBS, there is an increasing demand for first-stage HEMTs with high performance at a lower price.
Mitsubishi Electric’s MGF4963BL is a plastic package HEMT that is more cost effective than ceramic packaged models, and which achieves industry top-level low noise and high gain characteristics that enables it to be used in both the first stage and the second/third stages of amplifiers.
