The United States will test an existing missile defense system to try to intercept an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) next week, U.S. officials said on Friday, at a time when North Korea is trying to develop one. The test, scheduled for Tuesday, is the first time the United States will try to intercept an ICBM. …
The US Missile Defense Agency is speeding up a program to create multiple warhead missile interceptors by five years. North Korea is likely working hard on missiles that can fire decoys to confuse interceptors. The most recent Pentagon budget request seeks $259 million to move the Multi-Object Kill Vehicle, or MOKV, program into a new …
The first phase of the United States’ THAAD anti-missile defense system has been activated on a golf course in South Korea to guard against the North Korean threat, Western news agencies said Monday. “It has reached initial intercept capability,” a U.S. official, speaking on grounds of anonymity, told Agence France Presse of the hit-to-kill Terminal …
The more credible scenarios are that North Korea could inflict up to 1 million casualties on South Korea and possibly land a few missiles into Japan if the North Korea went into a inflict maximum damage mode. South Korea and the USA would be able to beat down and contain North Korea. The situation would …
In 2015, Maj. Park Sung-man of the South Korean military said the United States estimates between 6,000 and 8,000 subterranean facilities have been built in North Korea. In 2012, the US intelligence community estimated over 10,000 potential underground facilities exist worldwide, with the majority of them unidentified and the expectation that their numbers will continue …
A US carrier strike group (with the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier) completed military exercises — and would now head north and would be in the area of North Korea for weeks. The USS Carl Vinson’s crew is getting an extra month at sea as the strike group sails toward the Korean peninsula following much confusion …
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. is considering “all options” to counter North Korea’s nuclear threat while criticizing China over moves to block a missile-defense system on the peninsula. In some of his most detailed comments yet on North Korea, Tillerson ruled out a negotiated freeze of its nuclear weapons program and called …
Chris Patil gave an Ignite talk at the 20th Anniversary Summit of the Long Now Foundation. The talks were intended to convey the broad interests of the membership of this organization, which is devoted to long-term, planetary-level thinking. He spoke about the coming era of anti-aging medicine, first giving some short background on the fundamental …
Tabby’s star has provoked so much excitement over the past year, with speculation that it hosts a highly advanced civilization capable of building orbiting megastructures to capture the star’s energy, that UC Berkeley’s Breakthrough Listen project is devoting hours of time on the Green Bank radio telescope to see if it can detect any signals …
A cutting-edge development in spacecraft power systems is a class of materials with an unfamiliar name: skutterudites (skut-ta-RU-dites). Researchers are studying the use of these advanced materials in a proposed next-generation power system called an eMMRTG, which stands for Enhanced Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover and the New Horizons mission, which flew …
General Atomics Aeronautical displayed its proposal for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA’s) Gremlin programme, to develop the ability to air launch and air recover a small unmanned aircraft system (SUAS) from a C-130 transport aircraft, at the annual Air Force Association (AFA) symposium. General Atomics Aeronautical showed its proposal for DARPA’s Gremlin effort, …