Cozy Dark emerging technology began work in 2010 as a skunkworks-style engineering firm and is registered with CCR and NSPIRES.
Our early engineering & design efforts have focused on orbital debris solutions and electrodynamic tether technology.
Zach Urbina founded Cozy Dark with the cooperation of technical, research, and academic colleagues in the Southern California AeroAstro community.
We also have a growing library of space science talks featuring Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, astrophysicist Sean Carroll and more.
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17 posts tagged aircraft
Xaero from Masten Space Systems |
“After rigorous adherence to Masten’s “modify, test, modify” philosophy, Xaero has finally been unleashed from the safety tether, and performed a successful free flight hover this week. Improvements to our control algorithms were validated under tether earlier in the week, followed by careful analysis of Xaero’s flight performance. The result is a picture perfect 22 second hover flight.”
A Swarm of Nano Quadrotors |
Quadrotor-copters flying in clever formations, performing aerial maneuvers. developed by KMel Robotics, at the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania.
New Ideas Sharpen Focus for Greener Aircraft |
Leaner, greener flying machines for the year 2025 are on the drawing boards of three industry teams under contract to the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s Environmentally Responsible Aviation Project.
Teams from The Boeing Company in Huntington Beach, Calif., Lockheed Martin in Palmdale, Calif., and Northrop Grumman in El Segundo, Calif., have spent the last year studying how to meet NASA goals to develop technology that would allow future aircraft to burn 50 percent less fuel than aircraft that entered service in 1998 (the baseline for the study), with 75 percent fewer harmful emissions; and to shrink the size of geographic areas affected by objectionable airport noise by 83 percent.
“The real challenge is we want to accomplish all these things simultaneously,” said ERA project manager Fay Collier. “It’s never been done before. We looked at some very difficult metrics and tried to push all those metrics down at the same time.” continue reading
An artist’s conception of AVIATR, an airplane mission to the second largest moon in our solar system: Titan |
“The goal of the plane concept – which according to Barnes can serve as a standalone mission or as part of a larger Titan-focused exploration program – is to study the moon’s geography (its mountains, dunes, lakes and seas), as well as its atmosphere (the wind, haze, clouds and rain. Did you know that Titan is the only other place is our solar system where it rains?)”
“Titan is the best place to fly an airplane in the whole solar system.”
— Jason Barnes, University of Idaho
Image credit: Mike Malaska 2011
(via leerobinson, universetoday.com)
(via mk1civilian)
Just Don’t Call It ‘The Spruce Goose’ |
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is teaming with aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan to launch a space-travel operation.
The plan includes designing and building “the largest aircraft ever constructed,” which will carry a space rocket to an altitude of about 30,000 feet for an air launch into orbit.
The billionaire investor has established a new company called Stratolaunch Systems, based in Huntsville, Ala., to oversee the project. The idea is to bring airport-like operations to the space-launch business, initially carrying commercial and government payloads, and later passengers.
Plans call for a first flight within five years.
The giant carrier aircraft designed to transport the rocket into the air will use six 747 engines, have a gross weight of more than 1.2 million pounds and a wingspan of more than 380 feet. (Seattle Times)
Image: Stratolaunch
via lookhigh
ok, but seriously, it reminds me of the Spruce Goose.
Spherical flying machine developed by Defense Ministry’s Research Department (via DigInfo)
The Japanese Sci-Fi drone future is here:
This is the world’s first spherical flying machine developed by the Research Department at Japan’s Ministry of Defense.
This machine can hover like a helicopter, and take-off and land vertically. But because it works like a propeller plane standing vertically, it can fly forward at high speed using wings, which a helicopter can’t do. This machine also has three gyro sensors, so even if it hits an obstacle, it can maintain its attitude and keep flying through automatic control.
Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) via invaderxan
Pentagon weapons buyer quietly visits California to discuss bomber planes | Deep in the Mojave Desert, surrounded by tiers of barbed-wire fence, the nation’s largest defense contractors work in secrecy designing and building the latest military aircraft at Air Force Plant 42. The plane would be the first long-range bomber built in the U.S. since the last of the 21 bat-winged B-2 stealth bombers byNorthrop Grumman Corp. rolled off the assembly lines at Plant 42more than a decade ago. The Air Force owns the 5,800-acre industrial park and leases space to aerospace contractors.
The military’s top weapons buyer quietly visited the Palmdale facilitythis month to talk with leadingaerospace executives about plans to build a fleet of radar-evading bombers that the military hopes to have ready for action by the mid-2020s.
Now on the Pentagon wish list is a proposed fleet of 80 to 100 nuclear-capable bombers that could operate with or without a pilot in the cockpit.
Pentagon weapons acquisition chief Ashton Carter met separately with representatives of Northrop, Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., Pentagon spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin said.These companies are expected to vie for the estimated $55-billion contract that is expected to provide jobs and decades of work for Southern California’s aerospace industry. read more
