A team at the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Center, Aviation and Missile, has been working to develop a new dual pulse rocket motor incorporating insensitive munitions capabilities. A dual pulse rocket motor contains propellant that is divided into multiple sections by an internal barrier, which will perforate as the second igniter fires to allow the propellant to exhaust through the same nozzle as the first propellant.

The project was born in FY13 out of a program known as the Accelerated Improved Interceptor Initiative, or AI3 Interceptor, as a potential upgrade to the baseline rocket motor. The AI3 Interceptor program was halted, causing the JIMTP funded team to change their focus and downscale. Because the team was successfully demonstrating insensitive munitions technologies that hadn't been demonstrated before, the program was encouraged to continue.

Copper cables run through the fuselage of aircrafts. They transmit electrical signals for temperature-measuring sensors, LEDs in ceilings, or electronic connections in seats. During their installation, individual cables are combined into harnesses. A new manufacturing process eliminates the classic laying of the cable harnesses, saving space and weight.

There are no gas stations in deep space, so engines must be reliable for the long haul. NASA has successfully operated a free-piston Stirling engine for more than 110,000 hours of cumulative operation.

Scientists have developed a non-contact method of internal voltage control in polymer composites, making it possible to assess the degree of internal damage during the operation of aircraft parts. The method uses amorphous soft magnetic circuits to assess the stress state in composite materials. Wires are laid between the carbon fiber layers, forming a stress-sensitive grid.

Gone are the days when the impact of products on the environment or human health were optional business concerns. Regulatory constraints on materials and chemicals are increasing, and many companies struggle to respond – and to do so quickly and efficiently. Restrictions on hexavalent chrome are one well-known example. Another is REACH – the European Union regulation concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation & restriction of Chemicals – which applies to products that are either manufactured in, or imported into, the EU. Companies are under obligations to report the use of restricted substances, and to limit or avoid their use.

DMG MORI manufactures a wide variety of conventional chip-cutting and ultrasonic machining centers for OEMs and production job shops serving the aerospace industry. Inherent in this industry are several factors that require great care and planning in the machining process.

Perimeter surveillance of forward operating locations, such as Forward Arming and Refueling Points (FARPs), is crucial to ensure the survivability of personnel and materiel. FARPs are frequently located well outside the protective cover of the main forward operating bases. Therefore, they must provide their own organic perimeter defenses. Such defenses are manpower intensive. Research shows how cheap, remote, unattended sensors using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components can help reduce the manpower requirement for this task and yet not compromise the security of the operating location.

A co-prime array uses two uniform linear subarrays to construct an effective difference coarray with certain desirable characteristics, such as a high number of degrees-of-freedom for DOA estimation. In this research, the co-prime array concept has been generalized with two operations.

In industries such as aerospace, characterized by extreme operating environments that push materials and components to the edge of their design capabilities, companies are challenged to continually seek economically viable ways to maintain and improve performance.

Deployability and life-cycle management of large and disparate collections of weapons, combat and C4ISR computing systems is one of the most critical challenges facing the Department of Defense today. Numerous defense programs, each defining separate, and oftentimes unique system architectures, configurations, and compositions, result in a wide range of processing and control systems that create complexity and drive excessive lifecycle costs.