AFRL, industry launch revolutionary spacecraft technology > Air Force > Article Display

Amel
AFRL, industry launch revolutionary spacecraft technology > Air Force > Article Display


KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFNS) —  

The Air Force Research Laboratory has partnered with ThermAvant Technologies and Maxar Technologies to develop and deploy the next generation of spacecraft thermal control technology.

The groundbreaking technology, Oscillating Heat Pipes (OHPs), provides lightweight and highly-efficient temperature control on higher-power, yet smaller spacecraft. The OHP was recently launched in the second quarter of 2021 on a Maxar-built satellite.

“Maxar adopts the most innovative technologies to benefit our customers’ missions, and we are proud to support the commercial use of oscillating heat pipes developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and ThermAvant Technologies,” said Chris Johnson, Maxar’s senior vice president of space. “This technology allowed us to provide increased capability to our customers in satisfying their desired performance needs.”

Using OHPs instead of an active thermal management subsystem enables the U.S. Space Force to accomplish its missions at a lower cost.

It should be noted that though the structure of the OHP is static, the fluid oscillates within the microchannels of the structure, causing the heat transfer.

“Oscillating heat pipes have flown in space before, but now OHPs are being relied upon to serve a mission purpose,” said Jon Allison, the thermal thrust lead for the Spacecraft Component Technology Branch of the AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate. “The on-orbit operation of OHPs marks an important milestone in the technology transition.”

Allison’s colleague, Brent Taft, has spent more than a decade leading Air Force OHP research, and said he is ecstatic to see OHPs now being used on real-world spacecraft.

“The success of this transition builds upon AFRL and ThermAvant efforts to develop and validate an oscillating heat pipe operating limits model,” Taft said. “AFRL tested early OHP designs in the Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader (ASETS) microgravity aircraft flight campaign in 2012, and the ASETS-II experiment on OTV-5 (aka X-37B) in 2017.”

According to AFRL and their industry partners, OHPs are the future of spacecraft thermal control.

“At AFRL, we are excited to have the first operational OHPs flying in space,” Allison said. “I would like to congratulate our Air Force researchers, our contractor ThermAvant, and the system integrator Maxar for their success and dogged commitment. We look forward to seeing OHPs revolutionize thermal control for the next generation of Space Force satellites.”

Allison explained this circuitous technology development path leading from military service laboratories, to private industry, and then back to the military, is actually a common approach.

“Each organization plays a part in bringing technology to fruition,” he said. “The service lab connects the needs of the warfighter with technological possibilities, providing the seed that ultimately yields a viable product. Industry is motivated to take risks to bring better products to market, and commercial success proves to the Space Force that a new technology is reliable enough to serve the warfighter and the nation.”

The incorporation of the OHPs on an operational satellite is a big step forward. AFRL believes this represents the start of the fourth generation of spacecraft thermal

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Internet Backs Woman Who Slept in Her Own Bed After Roommates Put Drunk Friend There

Amel
Internet Backs Woman Who Slept in Her Own Bed After Roommates Put Drunk Friend There

Having a roommate in college often requires understanding, compromise and respect. It can be difficult living with someone else in college, and boundaries may be crossed. Redditor amithebadddguy posted to “Am I the A**hole” to ask if she was wrong to sleep in her own bed after she found her roommate’s friend sleeping in it.

She explained in her post, which has received more than 15,000 votes and nearly 2,000 comments, that she lives in a triple dorm with two other roommates. She said her two other roommates have gotten to be close friends and they have a large group of friends that hang out in the dorm room together.

“I’m not so close to them or their friend group plus I’m in a crazy demanding degree so I really just come there to sleep,” the Redditor wrote. “Often I also sleep at my girlfriend’s apartment so I’m not even there at night.”

One night, amithebadddguy got back to her dorm room late and was ready to get some rest in preparation for an exam the following morning. However, she found another woman asleep in her bed. After unsuccessfully trying to wake her up, the Redditor decided to go to sleep.

“I felt like it was super rude they put her to bed in my bed without asking me but whatevs, I’m too exhausted to deal with it,” she wrote. “I had an exam first thing in the morning and had no time or energy to deal with whatever was up. So I just roll her over into the corner by the wall and go to bed myself.”

As amithebadddguy was getting ready the next morning, her roommate’s friend woke up and was “weirded out” that the Redditor slept in the same bed. Her roommate’s friend said that she was told the bed would be empty and became upset, saying that she should have woken her up.

The disagreement continued when the Redditor’s roommate woke up.

“My roommates and this girl were upset with me for just getting into bed without waking them up, my roommates said they would have dealt with stuff like that if I woke them but I made their friend real uncomfortable by getting into this little twin bed with her,” she wrote.

Since then, amitheebadddguy wrote that it has been tense with her roommates.

However, commenters sided with amithebadddguy.

“The fact that they got angry instead of embarrassed suggests they loan out your bed a lot,” one comment read. “Familiarity breeds contempt and all.”

Other commenters wrote that they would have felt uncomfortable if they found someone they didn’t know sleeping in their own bed.

College Dorm Room
A Redditor wrote that she got into a disagreement with her roommates and her roommates’ friend when she slept in her own bed after finding the friend of her roommates already asleep in it. Here, a college student is moving into his dorm room.
Andrew Lichtenstein/Getty Images

“I HATE people in my bed,” a Reddit user commented. “And how

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Gatsby makes a new approach to web development easy

Amel
Gatsby makes a new approach to web development easy

Commentary: Jamstack’s modern approach to web development used to come with a caveat. With Gatsby 4, that caveat is gone.

developer.jpg

Image: NDAB Creativity/Shutterstock

Must-read developer content

So much of what we consider enterprise software today was once derided as hobbyist toys. Though it’s not exclusively an open source phenomenon, it’s perhaps most obvious in open source projects like Linux or MySQL, which seem so inappropriate for serious enterprise use at first, then grow to become defaults for enterprise use. Something similar is happening in web development. 

SEE: The best programming languages to learn–and the worst (TechRepublic Premium)

Not so long ago, static site generator (SSG) frameworks like open source Gatsby were considered limited to simple applications like blogs or documentation sites. The problem was performance. SSGs were lightning fast because they rendered websites as files, but that speed broke down once a website moved beyond 10 to 1,000 pages and scaled to 10,000 or 100,000 pages. Suddenly the compilation process got really slow. 

Well, that was then, and this is now.

Projects like Gatsby increasingly challenge the notion that enterprises would need, much less want, a heavy-duty, all-in-one-but-master-of-none CMS like WordPress or Sitecore. Not when they can get best-of-breed: a headless CMS like Contentful as a back-end, API-driven content store; Stripe for payments, Gatsby for front-end presentation, etc. Indeed, this relatively new Jamstack approach may be setting a new standard for web development. Perhaps most importantly for developers, with Gatsby 4, there’s no longer a need to bet on SSG over server-side rendering (SSR). With Gatsby 4, you can have both.

Start small, go big

But that’s not where developers start. The world has lived in traditional CMSes for so long that developers will usually turn to something like WordPress for their work projects. WordPress, for example, is the CMS behind 39.6% of websites. When developers build for fun, however, they look to something like Gatsby, an open source framework for building websites with React. Gatsby is also the name of the company that does most of the development on the project, while also offering a cloud service to make it easier to get started with Gatsby, and also to keep going. 

SEE: How to build a successful developer career (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

As Gatsby project and company co-founders Kyle Mathews and Sam Bhagwat explained in an interview, the company keeps pushing to make Gatsby easier and more powerful to use.

On the “easier” side, for years the company has offered Starters, which are open source, pre-built Gatsby sites with dummy content to enable a developer to start using Gatsby with minimal learning curve. How useful are Starters for a would-be Gatsby user? “That’s where everyone starts,” Mathews noted. “They’re like, ‘What’s this Gatsby thing? I’ll rebuild my portfolio.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, that was fun. I’ll suggest it at work.’ That’s a story we hear over and over again, and it’s not going to stop.” 

To ensure developers don’t choose Gatsby for its ease of use

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Google Ranking Tricking You? 7 SEO Tips to Treating It Right

Amel
Google Ranking Tricking You? 7 SEO Tips to Treating It Right
SEO PPC content writing services Houston TX

Using a search engine optimization (SEO) service, like Actual SEO Media, can dramatically boost your business.


HOUSTON (PRWEB)

Most things start with a quick search on Google, whether it’s the beginning of extensive “window shopping” or the advent of learning more knowledge than anyone really needs. It’s why companies worldwide compete to appear on the first page of a search result. But everyone in the know knows that Google’s algorithm is pretty picky about what appears center stage. That’s why search engine optimization (SEO) is becoming increasingly important. To help with building organic traffic, Actual SEO Media, Inc. has seven general SEO tips.

What is search engine optimization? Everyone knows searching for something on Google will return results that are most relevant to whatever was put in the search bar. Therefore, optimizing businesses’ websites so they’re more likely to appear for certain searches is a way to expand organically.

1. Choose your keywords wisely.

What are “keywords”? They’re the words that people will input to search for necessary information. Using specific keywords in an informative article or blog is one way to bring people searching for more info to the site.

Tailoring keywords to specific niches is almost an art form. First, it needs to be relevant. Next, Google dislikes duplicates, so you can’t use the same one repeatedly. A site using synonyms or related words will appear friendlier in Google’s eyes. If you’re unsure where to start your keyword research, contact a digital marketing agency to help you guide you on the right track.

2. Create diverse content.

After choosing relevant keywords that are likely to bring people to your site, it’s time to create content. This content can range from blogs and articles to infographics, announcements, etc. Anything that can generate interest for people to stick around and check out the rest of the site is valuable.

Let the creativity flow. Bland, generic, or repeated topics and posts won’t attract people. It won’t please Google either.

3. Write click-worthy headlines.

Once there is content with keywords that can bring potential clients back to your site, it’s time to appeal more to the masses. Even if your content appears further up in the search results, it doesn’t necessarily mean people are clicking on the link. It just means there’s a higher chance of them doing so.

Crafting blogs or articles’ titles to entice readers is also another art form. Punctuation plays a key role, so experiment with the format of the headline. There’s a difference between “Basic SEO Guidelines on How to Improve Visibility” versus “SEO Guidelines: 6 Tips On How to Improve Website Traffic.”

4. Create a mobile-friendly website.

Over half of searches are made from a mobile phone. Ensuring a site is mobile-friendly is a boon for both users and the company. The easier it is to access, the more traffic it’ll generate.

Google announced a while back that with the advent of mobile phones, its search algorithms would

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Imagine A Future Where Technology Is Developed With Humans In Mind

Amel
Imagine A Future Where Technology Is Developed With Humans In Mind

It seems insurmountable today. Digital consumption is rampant. Harms from misinformation to breaches to online bullying to manipulative targeting is spawning an environment of political and societal polarization, increased mental anxiety and even suicides.  With inadequate laws to regulate these digital services, the very rules and policies that have continued to govern the physical world are not able to keep pace with the speed of technology, and properly reflect what is happening in our digital spaces.

Can we have a future where creators of technology can build towards responsibility despite the constant allure of monetization and profits?  I had a chance to speak to David Ryan Polgar, Founder & Director of the non-profit, All Tech Is Human (ATIH) to dive into discussing this critical juncture where heightened consumer awareness has the potential to drive a different story.

This career shift to be the sudden purveyor of responsible technology is what Polgar has attributed to his mother. This is where he credits his ability to reimagine and not be locked in by the status quo. As a child, he was given free reign to invent, reimagine and to mentally start from scratch. 

 “I vividly recall always being encouraged to use my imagination with a diverse range of ingredients to create new dishes that might be outrageous. I wasn’t following a recipe, there was no recipe. That was the point. To throw away preconceived notions of what should be done based on what has already been done. To reimagine. This is a sense of experimentation that has always stuck with me, and I believe has allowed me to not be tethered to a strict expectation around a career path.”

The term, “tech ethicist” was something Polgar was able to develop into a meaningful principle that has allowed people to focus on the seriousness of the technology we are developing and deploying.

The Defining Moments

Polgar admits his path was paved out of frustration that there wasn’t enough deep thought about the impact on society. He came to a realization early in his career that the technology being developed would greatly impact the future of humanity. In particular, he points to artificial intelligence and social media that alter freedom of choice and greatly impact the human condition.  He describes a pivotal moment in 2010 that solidified his journey. 

“I had received a friend request from someone I knew from high school. But before I had the time to confirm the friend request, I heard from another friend that this individual had just taken his life. So here was someone who I now knew was dead, but was actively asking me on Facebook to be my friend. That was an important moment that deeply altered how I thought about technology, and I made it my life’s purpose to help bring greater consideration to how we develop and deploy emerging technologies.”

Another key moment happened in 2012. Polgar was assigned to do jury duty, which would include a

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T-Mobile Charts Out Better Home Internet Options

Amel
T-Mobile Charts Out Better Home Internet Options

T-Mobile’s home internet service provides a big boost for people in areas where they’re otherwise stuck with lackluster cable or DSL, but it could use some upgrades. In a conversation with PCMag, T-Mobile’s President of Technology Neville Ray mused about how the system could be improved in the future.

“There’s way more demand for this product than we imagined. Its performance is pretty strong, and its price point is great, and folks hate their cable companies,” Ray says.

I reviewed T-Mobile Home Internet in June, and I found its weakest point to be its Nokia home modem. My first unit failed, and I needed a replacement. Several commenters on my review agree: they say the modem is unreliable and they’ve often needed replacements.

“We’re absolutely expanding the number of vendor solutions that will be available,” Ray says, pointing out that when the service first launched, “we didn’t have a ton of choice.”

The Nokia modem also has no easy option to add an external antenna, which could really improve signal strength. (You can in fact add one, but it takes some hardware hacking.) Ray says that T-Mobile was extremely focused on ease of use at the beginning of its rollout, but it’s now trying to see how it can offer more flexible solutions.

He didn’t give any time frame for offering more options; he was just pointing out that T-Mobile is thinking about them. “We didn’t want to have to do the Verizon thing of sticking it up in the window,” he says. “We’re trying to avoid inconveniencing the consumer with truck rolls and that sort of thing. We need something…that most average consumers can deploy quickly.”

Even without extending coverage further, though, T-Mobile is pretty thrilled about the demand it’s seeing. While Verizon has taken three years to get to 150,000 wireless home subscribers, T-Mobile is aiming for 500,000 by the end of this year, the company has previously said.

Recommended by Our Editors

According to our review, T-Mobile’s now-$50/month home internet service offered me speeds between 150-300Mbps with no contract, installation, or equipment fees. That’s better than DSL, on par with cable, and not as good as fiber. Coverage for the best speeds is reliant on T-Mobile’s mid-band 5G network, which now covers about 185 million people.

T-Mobile has plenty of capacity on its mid-band network for more signups, and won’t need to dip into its cache of millimeter-wave spectrum soon, Ray says.

“The volume of capacity we’re generating with that mid-band deployment, and our ability to start extending the reach and availability of that 5G home router product, that’s pretty immense over the next two or three years,” he says.

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