Engineers with the Air Force Research Lab’s materials and manufacturing directorate at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, say they have successfully integrated two existing technologies to create a new thermal control system for future satellites. The new active-temperature control system is compact and much lighter than state-or-the-art devices with similar functions, requires very little power, and has minimal data storage requirements. It combines an electrostatic radiator, developed by Sensortek, Inc., of Costa Mesa, Calif., and a heat-flux-based emissivity measuring method created by Advanced Thermal and Environmental Concepts, Inc., of College Park, Md. After testing in a large vacuum chamber, the system was included as part of NASA’s MISSE-6 on-orbit experiment that was carried into space in March by the Space Shuttle Endeavor. (Wright-Patterson report by Heyward Burnette)
Lt. Gen. Stephen L. Davis, the Department of the Air Force’s top internal watchdog, has been nominated to lead Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the service’s bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles.