Some people believe that laser weapons is only a fantastic movie. However, this is not so long ago. Became aware of the successful testing of a new gun Lockheed Martin.

Your system company called beautiful – Athena. While deciphering the “name” is not that romantic – Advanced Test High Energy Asset.

If you believe the creators, they came up with the installation of a truly effective. Judge for yourself. From a distance of about 2 km, it disabled the passenger cars.

30-kilowatt platform in seconds burned a hood and disrupt engine.

Very demonstrative show of force. Said the engineer made using a unique technology. A plurality of laser beams were “merged” into one, which significantly increased the power.

When will the mass introduction – is unknown. However, the prospects for the invention are enormous. Lockheed Martin plans to mount Athena military helicopters, cars, boats and airplanes.

Source: Nextpowerup

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The Dutch team Mars One, who became famous thanks to his project to colonize Mars One Mars, now reported the conclusion of partnership agreements with companies Lockheed Martin and SSTL.

Joint efforts of the above companies are going in 2018 to send to Mars first private spaceship. Instead of running the team of astronauts, in accordance with the ultimate goal, this mission is presented as proof-of-concept, and probably as a way to draw attention to the project Mars One.

Lockheed Martin’s and SSTL in this collaboration will work with Mars One on different projects. The company Lockheed Martin will develop a modified lander Phoenix, which was sent to Mars in 2007. An updated version of Phoenix is ​​designed for in-depth study of the Martian soil, getting water from the Martian soil and test the deployment of solar panels. The spacecraft is also planning to install a camera that will broadcast streaming video in real time on Earth. Broadcast video will be assigned to the relay satellite, which is to create a company SSTL. Executive Director of Mars One Bas Lansdorp said that according to estimates satellite will last at least two years.

Before starting the lander Mars One intends to hold a competition among high school students in order to find ideas for the mission. Top of the ideas will be selected as the main tasks of the mission. Bas Lansdorp also promises to launch a campaign on Indiegogo, to allow people to vote in favor of the main tasks of the mission.

Joint project of Mars One Team, Lockheed Martin and SSTL signals big leap forward in the commercial spaceflight industry over the next few years, but it is difficult to say how good such ambitious long-term plans for Mars One Team.

Earlier, Mr. Lansdorp expected that the desire to get a one way ticket to Mars Mars One program will show more than 1 million people, and thanks to a small entrance fee of problems with financing the project will not arise. However, acceptance of applications ended on 31 August, and still want to be much less than expected – a little more than 200 thousand over the next two years, 200 thousand of these will be selected for training from 24 to 40 people. However, on Mars in 2025 will fly only a team of four. Earlier, it was planned that the flight will take place two years earlier.

By the way, plans for Mars One, Lockheed Martin and SSTL currently exist only on paper. Thus the cost of the project is $ 332 thousand if in the near future will be able to find investors, the company will begin the next stage – the development and launch of the satellite system and the comic.

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National Agency of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in February of this year reported that the assembly of the space probe MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) is completed. Recall that the spacecraft was built by specialists Lockheed Martin, and the launch of the mission, which will help determine how Mars lost its atmosphere, will be held next Monday – November 18.

The probe will be launched from the space center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Will be used to launch the rocket Atlas 5. According to NASA, to get to Mars MAVEN spacecraft will take about 10 months. It is expected that the probe will be released on an elliptical orbit around Mars in September 2014.

On board the spacecraft are 8 different devices, forming three sets of tools. They are designed to help scientists to accurately measure the rate at which the red planet is losing air, and to find out how the rate of loss of the atmosphere affect the climate of Mars in the past.

Finally it is worth noting that the construction of MAVEN spent $ 671 million if the rocket launch for some reason not be able to do during the launch window (from 18 November to 7 December), it will have to wait for the next two years.

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