She also made recommendations on how to refuel. The New York Air National Guard aircrew landed their LC-130 Hercules at the South Pole and picked up Dr. Nielson without shutting off the engines. Dr. Nielsen was safely evacuated last month, due in part to the advice provided by Obringer and Snyder. AFRL's latest effort in lightweight deployable optics reached a critical point in its development this month by gathering light on a focal plane array. This ground demonstration at AFRL's Space Vehicles Directorate, in effect, proved that the telescope was working as planned.
Clearer images are the result.
I was a pathfinder satellite in the overall MightySat program. The next in the series is MightySat II.1, planned for launch in mid-2000, and will demonstrate more AFRL space technologies such as Fourier Transform Hyperspectral Imaging, picosatallite technologies, and others. Additional testing may be occurring during the March-April 2000 time period. This engine is one of the few PDEs in the world that has successfully demonstrated multi-tube operation. Multi-tube capability is significant in that practical PDE propulsion will require the scaling, redundancy, higher aggregate frequencies, and noise abatement possible with multiple tubes firing out of phase.