Roy Mark

Opposition in Congress is growing to President Obama’s proposed elimination of the Loran navigational system. According to the White House, the Loran system has been made “obsolete by GPS” and dropping the program would save taxpayers $35 million in 2010 and $190 million over five years. The Loran system employs a chain of land-based, low […]

It didn’t happen easily, but the space shuttle Atlantis’ astronauts installed new gyroscopes May 15 on the Hubble Space Telescope. Working in extremely tight quarters inside the Hubble, the spacewalking crew encountered a box of gyros that wouldn’t align properly but successfully installed a different set.The bulky gyroscope box delayed the timetable for the primary […]

With debris from an exploded 2007 Chinese weather satellite safely avoided, the Atlantis crew May 14 began the first major repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope since 2002. The four-inch piece of debris came within approximately 1.7 miles and 492 feet below the Atlantis and the attached Hubble at 7:28 p.m. EDT May 13.“No action […]

Having suffered only minor damage from its May 11 launch at the Kennedy Space Center, the Space Shuttle Atlantis arrived at the Hubble Space Telescope May 13 to begin the high-risk task of repairing the 19-year-old orbiting observatory. Around midafternoon, NASA Astronaut Megan McArthur captured the Hubble with Atlantis’ robotic arm and lowered it into […]

Clearwire and Cisco announced May 12 an alliance to enhance and expand Clearwire’s 4G mobile WiMax network, currently limited to Baltimore and Portland, Ore. The deal names Cisco as Clearwire’s IP NGN (national Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network) core infrastructure provider with Cisco to build new mobile WiMax devices for the consumer, small office or home […]

With the remote networking market targeted by virtual branch office comprising roughly half of the nearly $11 billion WAN edge market, Aruba Networks said May 12 it was aggressively moving into the market, releasing three new families of remote devices. Aruba’s VBN solution includes new software for data center-based Aruba Controllers, as well as three […]

Astronauts on the Hubble-bound repair mission deployed a robotic arm and sensor May 12 to inspect the space shuttle Atlantis’ heat shields after NASA officials became concerned over possible launch damage. Atlantis blasted off to the Hubble Space Telescope May 11.According to NASA, the liftoff damaged about 25 square feet of the shuttle’s launch pad […]

An international team based in the Netherlands has entered the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million competition to successfully launch, land and operate a robotic rover on the lunar surface. Known as White Label Space, the new team consists of space professionals from more than 11 countries across the globe.A “white label” product is […]

AirTran Airways announced May 12 it will become the first major airline to offer passengers Wi-Fi broadband Internet access on every flight across its entire fleet of Boeing 737 and 717 aircraft. Other airlines, including Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines, offer Wi-Fi but only selected flights.The airline said all 136 AirTran […]

With the United States’ legacy GPS satellites progressively failing and the Air Force’s efforts to replace them faltering, the Government Accountability Office says there are serious questions looming as to whether the government will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current military, enterprise and civilian GPS needs without interruption.In addition to […]

The space shuttle Atlantis successfully launched May 11 for an 11-day repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. For NASA’s shuttle program, due to be retired in late 2010, it is the last service call to the 19-year-old Hubble. The launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida went went off without incident at 2:02 […]

While President Obama’s 2010 NASA budget drew praise from NASA officials May 7, not everyone is happy with the $18.69 billion allocated to America’s space program. The budget request is an increase of $903.6 million, or 5 percent, above funding provided in former President Bush’s last NASA budget.In addition to continued “robust” funding of manned […]