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Project ISINGLASS
Project Isinglass was the code name given to two heavily classified, crewed reconnaissance aircraft studied by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as potential replacements for the Lockheed A-12 and SR-71 during the mid-1960s. The first proposal under the Isinglass name, a high-altitude plane to fly at , was considered an insufficient advancement over existing aircraft; the second, much more advanced design, sometimes referred to as Project Rheinberry, was an air-launched, rocket-powered boost-glide aircraft that would use a very-high-altitude trajectory to avoid defenses. This aircraft was considered too costly for development, and the project was abandoned in 1967. Origins Project Isinglass was developed as a result of the vulnerability of existing crewed reconnaissance aircraft, such as the Lockheed U-2 and the Lockheed A-12, to Soviet air defenses in the early 1960s, catalysed by the shooting down in May 1960 of Francis Gary Powers.Day 2010 Although there were continu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reconnaissance Aircraft
A reconnaissance aircraft (colloquially, a spy plane) is a military aircraft designed or adapted to perform aerial reconnaissance with roles including collection of imagery intelligence (including using photography), signals intelligence, as well as measurement and signature intelligence. Modern technology has also enabled some aircraft and UAVs to carry out real-time surveillance in addition to general intelligence gathering. Before the development of devices such as radar, military forces relied on reconnaissance aircraft for visual observation and scouting of enemy movement. An example is the PBY Catalina maritime patrol flying boat used by the Allies in World War II: a flight of U.S. Navy Catalinas spotted part of the Japanese fleet approaching Midway Island, beginning the Battle of Midway. History Prior to the 20th century machines for powered and controllable flight were not available to military forces, but some attempts were made to use lighter than air ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mach Number
Mach number (M or Ma) (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after the Moravian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. : \mathrm = \frac, where: : is the local Mach number, : is the local flow velocity with respect to the boundaries (either internal, such as an object immersed in the flow, or external, like a channel), and : is the speed of sound in the medium, which in air varies with the square root of the thermodynamic temperature. By definition, at Mach1, the local flow velocity is equal to the speed of sound. At Mach0.65, is 65% of the speed of sound (subsonic), and, at Mach1.35, is 35% faster than the speed of sound (supersonic). Pilots of high-altitude aerospace vehicles use flight Mach number to express a vehicle's true airspeed, but the flow field around a vehicle varies in three dimensions, with corresponding variations in local Mach number. The loc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pratt & Whitney XLR-129
The XLR-129 was an American rocket engine design that would have used liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. It was developed by Pratt & Whitney and initially was to develop of thrust. It featured an expanding nozzle in order to tune performance over a wide range of altitudes. The XLR-129 was designed to be reusable and was initially paid for by the US Air Force, for a 1960s program called ISINGLASS, which was to be a manned rocket plane that was intended for surveillance overflights. For the Space Shuttle an attempt was made to increase the thrust to , but in the end Rocketdyne Rocketdyne was an American rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, in southern California. The Rocketdyne Division was founded by North American Avia ...'s Space Shuttle Main Engine was used instead. The XLR-129 program was never completed, no complete engine was ever produced, but many systems we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for liquid water to exist on the Earth's surface, absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention (greenhouse effect), and reducing temperature extremes between day and night (the diurnal temperature variation). By mole fraction (i.e., by number of molecules), dry air contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere. Air composition, temperature, and atmospheric pressure vary with altitude. Within the atmosphere, air suitable for use in photosynthesis by terrestrial plants and breathing of terrestrial animals is found only in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps (United States Army), Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, airlift, rapid global mobility, Strategic bombing, global strike, and command and control. The United States Air Force is a military service branch organized within the United States Department of the Air Force, De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air Force Systems Command
The Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) is an inactive United States Air Force Major Command. It was established in April 1951, being split off from Air Materiel Command. The mission of AFSC was Research and Development for new weapons systems. Overview AFSC took on engineering functions which formerly resided in the Air Materiel Command (AMC), the Army Air Forces Technical Service Command (TSC), and the Air Technical Service Command (ATSC) as a separate research and development command in 1950. It incorporated Air Proving Ground Command in 1957. On 1 July 1992, AFSC and Air Force Logistics Command were merged to form the Air Force Materiel Command, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. In the reorganization of 1961, Air Force Systems Command acquired the materiel procurement function from Air Force Logistics Command. It was re-integrated with Air Force Logistics Command in 1992. History Origins The origins of Air Force Systems Command date at least to the establis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernard Schriever
Bernard Adolph Schriever (14 September 1910 – 20 June 2005), also known as Bennie Schriever, was a United States Air Force general who played a major role in the Air Force's space and ballistic missile programs. Born in Bremen, Germany, Schriever immigrated to the United States as a boy and became a naturalized US citizen in 1923. He graduated from Texas A&M in 1931, and was commissioned as a reserve second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He transferred to the United States Army Air Corps and was awarded his wings and a commission as a reservist second lieutenant in 1933. In 1937, he was released from active duty at his own request and became a pilot with Northwest Airlines, but he returned to the Air Corps with a regular commission in 1938. During World War II, Schriever received a Master of Arts in aeronautical engineering from Stanford University in June 1942, and was sent to the Southwest Pacific Area, where he flew combat missions as a bomber pilot with the 19th Bombardm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Reconnaissance Office
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is a member of the United States Intelligence Community and an agency of the United States Department of Defense which designs, builds, launches, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. federal government, and provides satellite intelligence to several government agencies, particularly signals intelligence (SIGINT) to the NSA, imagery intelligence (IMINT) to the NGA, and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) to the DIA. NRO is considered, along with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), to be one of the "big five" U.S. intelligence agencies. The NRO is headquartered in Chantilly, Virginia, south of the Washington Dulles International Airport. The Director of the NRO reports to both the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense. The NRO's federal workforce is a hybrid orga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surface-to-air Missiles
A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft system; in modern armed forces, missiles have replaced most other forms of dedicated anti-aircraft weapons, with anti-aircraft guns pushed into specialized roles. The first attempt at SAM development took place during World War II, but no operational systems were introduced. Further development in the 1940s and 1950s led to operational systems being introduced by most major forces during the second half of the 1950s. Smaller systems, suitable for close-range work, evolved through the 1960s and 1970s, to modern systems that are man-portable. Shipborne systems followed the evolution of land-based models, starting with long-range weapons and steadily evolving toward smaller designs to provide a layered defence. This evolution of design increasi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for development. The first ( STS-1) of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights (STS-5) beginning in 1982. Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. They launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Operational missions launched numerous satellites, interplanetary probes, and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), conducted science experiments in orbit, participated in the Shuttle-''Mir'' program with Russia, and participated in construction and servicing of the International Space Station (IS ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, the 32nd-most populous, and the 9th-least densely populated of the U.S. states. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area, including three of the state's four largest incorporated cities. Nevada's capital is Carson City. Las Vegas is the largest city in the state. Nevada is officially known as the "Silver State" because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the "Battle Born State" because it achieved statehood during the Civil War (the words "Battle Born" also appear on its state flag); as the " Sagebrush State", for the native plant of the same name; and as the " Sage-hen State". The name means "snowy" in Spanish, re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Groom Lake
Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force Base, the facility is officially called Homey Airport or Groom Lake (after the salt flat next to its airfield). Details of its operations are not made public, but the USAF says that it is an open training range, and it is commonly thought to support the development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. The USAF and CIA acquired the site in 1955, primarily for flight testing the Lockheed U-2 aircraft. The intense secrecy surrounding the base has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component of unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore. It has never been declared a secret base, but all research and occurrences in Area 51 are Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI). The CIA publicly acknowledged the base's existence on June 25, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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