Month: September 2016

The 6 Day War
Aviation, Time Flies

The 6 Day War

Operation Focus (Mivtza Moked) Intro In 1967, Israel was faced with a serious geopolitical existential threat of war on 3 fronts by its neighbors. Israel decided to go for pre-emptive airstrikes and won the war in just six days. How did the IAF achieve this success? The Six-Day War was fought by Israel and its neighboring states of Egypt, Syria and Jordan with the backing of almost all Arab countries. The June 1967 war in particular was not only a watershed in the history of the Middle East, it was also one of the rare occurrences in the recent history of a pre-emptive war, a type of war which breaks out primarily if the attacker feels that it will itself be the target of a military attack in the short term. Political Background The root cause of Arab-Israeli conflict has been the c...
Reality Check!
Astronomy and planetary sciences, Space flight

Reality Check!

From Einstein’s theory of relativity to the remarkable discovery of gravitational waves, a century-long ride.   Intro 100 years after it was first published, Einstein’s theory of relativity has emerged copiously triumphant in the wake of the recent direct detection of gravitational waves. Einstein said that everything is relative. Gravity isn’t exactly a downward force, time is not absolute and it’s all about ‘spacetime’. Was Isaac Newton entirely mistaken? We hear ‘general relativity’ and we think ‘ E=mc2 ’, Albert Einstein’s gift to humanity. The general theory of relativity was published by Albert Einstein in 1916. A century later, in late 2015, the very first direct detection of the ‘gravitational waves’ as predicted by general relativity has ensued. Thanks to the brilliant LI...
Frozen Orbits
Astronomy and planetary sciences, Space flight

Frozen Orbits

Frozen orbits about the Earth - counteracting orbital perturbations in the long run A special type of orbit that is cleverly chosen such that the variation in the mean Kepler elements under the influence of Earth’s irregular gravity field is minimized. There are six intuitive orbital components that are often used to describe the shape and orientation of a satellite orbit. These elements are varying constantly due to perturbations, but for a cleverly chosen orbit, the frozen orbit, the long-term effects of at least some of these perturbations can be cancelled. In 1978, a key Earth observation satellite was launched from Vandenberg AFB in the United States. This satellite, carrying the name Seasat, was to monitor Earth’s oceanographic phenomena. To carry out this mission, the satellite w...
TU Delft’s Solar Boat Team
Specials, Student projects

TU Delft’s Solar Boat Team

Amongst the facilities that the TU Delft offers to its students is the D:DREAM Hall. D:DREAM stands for “Dream Realization of Extremely Advanced Machines”. The D:DREAM Hall is home to a variety of engineering teams, the so-called DREAM Teams. A DREAM Team is a great way for a student to learn many essential engineering skills in a relatively short time. The teams typically start in September; working towards competitions taking place in summer. This leaves the teams with eight to ten months until they need to deliver their product. This means that there is little room for errors, too many design iterations and other delays. To work well as a team is of paramount importance. The teams function as full-fledged companies, in order to give a more realistic engineering experience. The chall...