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30Mar

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Boeing X-37 Mystery Mission

The U.S. Air Force's unmanned space plane X-37 is one of the most mysterious spacecraft ever. It is known as the Orbital Test Vehicle and its primary objective is to test advanced spacecraft technologies. The program is classified, therefore it remains a secret what the tested technologies are. The X-37B was launched on 20 May 2015, this is the fourth X-37 mission and it is still in progress. The X-37B space plane has been in orbit for almost two years now and broke an orbital record when it hit 675 days in orbit around Earth on March 25th 2017. Concept of U.S. Air Force's X-37B in orbit [NASA Marshall Space Flight Center] The X-37 program began as a NASA project in 1999 after which it was transferred to the U.S. Department of Defence in 2004. The X-37B spacecraft...

25Mar

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Aviation, News, Operations

Maiden flight 787-10 scheduled

Boeing has announced the date of the 787-10 Dreamliner maiden flight to be March 31st. Its public roll-out on February 17th took place at its exclusive building site in North Charleston, South Carolina. The event was celebrated by thousands of employees along with U.S. President Donald Trump and the Governor of South Carolina. https://twitter.com/BoeingAirplanes/status/844595295367385090 As of February 2017 over 1200 orders have been placed for the entire 787 family, of which 149 for the 787-10 variant. Its prime customers include Singapore Airlines and Etihad Airways, both having ordered 30 aircraft. First delivery is planned for 2018. Boeing shall be broadcasting the first flight of the newest member of the 787 family, subject to weather and other factors, live online here.

22Mar

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Astronomy and planetary sciences, News, Space flight

NASA’s EO-1 Retires After 17 Years

Earth Observing-1 (EO-1), one of NASA’s pathfinder Earth satellites, was launched back in 2000 as part of their New Millennium Program. Its original mission was designed to last one year and it was designed to operate for about 1.5 times that duration. Seventeen years later, we can safely say that it has far exceeded expectations. Now EO-1 is finally set to retire on March 30, 2017. Some of its achievements include being the first to map active lava flows, track re-growth in the Amazon and measure a methane leak at a facility from space. During its operation, more than 1500 papers were published based on EO-1 research. Fig. Methane emissions detected by EO-1’s Hyperion (Source: earthobservatory.nasa.gov) Two of the instruments on board the EO-1 that made this possible are the Adva...

19Mar

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Aviation, News, Operations

Endless runways: The future?

If you think that everything you can think of has already been invented, you are wrong. Recently BBC News posted a film [1] presenting the idea of circular runways. The Endless Runway is a project run by the NLR in the Netherlands. The principle of The Endless Runway is that aircraft take-off and land on a circular runway. The circular runway will allow aircraft to take-off in any direction and land in any direction, making it possible for the aircraft to always land and take-off in the most desirable direction with respect to the wind: headwind. The possibility for aircraft to land and take-off without experiencing crosswind at all times is not the only advantage to the concept of circular runways. In low wind conditions, it would be possible to shorten the landing and take-off intervals....

21Feb

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Featured

Capybara Fact of the Week

The week's capybara fact is that it can be found here:) Got em!

29Sep

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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...

28Sep

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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...

22Sep

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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...

20Sep

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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...

19Aug

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Aviation

Swiss Air Force: An Inside Look

To be able to fly a military aircraft, aspirants have to go through a tough selection process. Eventually only a fraction of the applicants will be able to call themselves pilots. One of these people is Sebastian Blanke, Lieutenant of the Swiss Army, currently an aspirant to becoming a pilot. He shares his experiences exclusively with Leonardo Times. As a child, many people have the dream of becoming a pilot. I wasn’t any different. Huge, complex, and fast technical systems like airplanes always fascinated me. As I grew older, the dream grew with me. Finally, at the age of seventeen, I decided to pursue my dream and try to become a pilot of the Swiss Air Force (SAF). The very first step on the journey to the cockpit is SPHAIR. It is the platform of the SAF, which offers every Swiss cit...