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Domain: northropgrumman.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to northropgrumman.com.
Stories · 3
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Liquid Hydrogen Powers a UAV For a Cool 48 Hours
An anonymous reader writes "While liquid hydrogen may not be a mainstream fuel for drones, the aerospace industry has said it holds the promise of flight endurance on the order of days, seemingly just another far-fetched aerospace industry pitch ... until now. The Naval Research Laboratory just announced that the Ion Tiger, a diminutive 37-pound airplane with a 17 foot wingspan, flew for 48 hours and 1 minute on liquid hydrogen and a fuel cell (anyone else notice the oddly specific duration? Guess it's better than 47 hours 59 minutes). This is a dramatically different scale than the liquid hydrogen powered 150 foot wingspan Boeing Phantom Eye and 175 foot wingspan AeroVironment Global Observer, which have yet to live up to their multi-day endurance projections. Interestingly enough, the well-known Global Hawk only has an endurance of 33.1 hours, which barely cracks Wikipedia's list of notable UAV endurance flights. Of course, solar-electric airplanes have flown for two weeks continuously, but that sure seems like refueling!" -
Update on Project Prometheus
Aglassis writes "It appears that NASA is not backing down from their nuclear space initiative. Project Prometheus has recently started a new web page (under JPL) and NASA is finishing up a period of public comment (last session today). Currently Northrop Grumman is contracted to begin preliminary design of the spacecraft until 2008 for NASA (the reactor will be built by the Department of Energy's Division of Naval Reactors--the folks who control all US submarine and aircraft carrier nuclear reactors). Early specs are that it will be 60 meters long, have a 30,000 kg mass, use a 100 KW reactor using Brayton cycle gas turbines, be powered by ion thrusters with a 7000 second specific impulse, and have a science payload of 1500 kg. Early mission plans for Prometheus 1 (Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter) indicate that the spacecraft would orbit Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa individually, and perhaps have a lifespan of about 20 years." -
Update on Project Prometheus
Aglassis writes "It appears that NASA is not backing down from their nuclear space initiative. Project Prometheus has recently started a new web page (under JPL) and NASA is finishing up a period of public comment (last session today). Currently Northrop Grumman is contracted to begin preliminary design of the spacecraft until 2008 for NASA (the reactor will be built by the Department of Energy's Division of Naval Reactors--the folks who control all US submarine and aircraft carrier nuclear reactors). Early specs are that it will be 60 meters long, have a 30,000 kg mass, use a 100 KW reactor using Brayton cycle gas turbines, be powered by ion thrusters with a 7000 second specific impulse, and have a science payload of 1500 kg. Early mission plans for Prometheus 1 (Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter) indicate that the spacecraft would orbit Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa individually, and perhaps have a lifespan of about 20 years."