Israel May Be Dropping Spies In Iran Using Secret American Stealth BlackHawk Helicopters

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Aviation authorities are scratching their heads over a mysterious flying object in the skies above Colorado that almost caused a mid-air crash.

In a transmission that appeared on LiveATC.net, the operator of the Cessna Citation 525 CJ1 says: ‘A remote controlled aircraft, or what?

 The object reportedly came dangerously close to the private jet, but it never appeared on radar

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Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/iran_executes_alleged_israel_spy_Eb4moEZDF46huyLf9aFuKL#ixzz1uxwLaanO

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Rescuers have discovered bodies but no survivors near the wreckage of a new Russian-made passenger plane that smashed into the side of an Indonesian volcano during a flight to impress potential buyers. All 45 people on board are feared dead.

“So far we haven’t found any survivors, but we are still searching,” Gagah Prakoso said. “I cannot say anything about the condition of the bodies,” he said, but added that “a high-speed jet plane hit the cliff, exploded and tore apart”.

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WASHINGTON  POST— The CIA thwarted an ambitious plot by al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, The Associated Press has learned.

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60 Minutes: The Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta

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Read more:HERE 

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By Karin Brulliard and Joby Warrick, Published: April 25 | Updated: Thursday, April 26, 9:21 AM

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PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. - The North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command will conduct a major exercise, ARDENT SENTRY 2012, focused on Defense Support of Civil Authorities, May 2 – 9, 2012. 

The exercise will be primarily a Command Post Exercise, but there will be field training events within the exercise. Those events will take place in North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Alaska, Connecticut and Nova Scotia and involve United States and Canadian military units.

- North Dakota, the Air Force Global Strike Command will respond to a simulated Nuclear Weapons Incident (NUWAIX) on Minot Air Force Base. 

- Oregon, the Oregon National Guard will work with state and local officials to respond to numerous weather-related and security events. 

- Texas, US Army North will deploy a task force to work through the process of leading a military response to a major disaster.  

- Alaska, Joint Task Force-Alaska will conduct a coordinated response to a major aircraft crash in a remote area. 

- Nova Scotia, Canadian and US Naval forces will work together to handle a security related event.

ARDENT SENTRY 12 will validate existing plans, policies, and procedures, including the Federal Inter-agency Response Plan, as well as state and regional plans.

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SpaceX’s first launch to ISS delayed again

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By Greg Miller/The Washington Post

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TEHRAN, Iran - Iran claimed Sunday that it had recovered data from an American spy drone that went down in Iran last year, including information that the aircraft was used to spy on Osama bin Laden weeks before he was killed. Iran also said it was building a copy of the drone.

Read it on Global News: Global Edmonton | Iran says it recovered data from captured US spy drone, plans to build copy 

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MARTIN GRIFFITH/RENO, Nev. (AP) - A loud explosion heard across much of Nevada and California on Sunday morning rattled homes and prompted a flood of calls to law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Sierra Nevada, some reporting fireball sightings.

 The sound and the light show were likely caused by a meteor that entered Earth’s atmosphere, astronomers said. “It made the shades in my room shake hard enough to slam into the window a couple times,” said Nicole Carlsen of the Reno area. “I kept looking for earthquake information, but (there was) nothing.

 I even checked the front of my house to make sure no one ran into the garage. I wish I had seen the meteor.” Erin Girard-Hudson of Arnold, Calif., told The Union Democrat of Sonora, Calif., that the loud boom that occurred around 8 a.m. made her 2-year-old daughter, Elsie, cry. “It knocked me off my feet and was shaking the house,” she said. “It sounded like it was next door.” No damages or injuries were immediately reported.

There were no reports of earthquakes at the time. Some people reported seeing a brilliant light streak across the sky at the same time. Sightings occurred over roughly a 600-mile line across the two states, including Reno, Elko and North Las Vegas in Nevada, and the San Francisco, Sacramento and Bakersfield areas in California. Astronomers said they believe the mysterious light was a fireball, which is a very bright meteor.

It will take time to determine the path of the fireball and where it broke up, they added. “From the reports, I have no doubt it was a fireball,” said Robert Lunsford of the Geneseo, N.Y.-based American Meteor Society. “It happens all the time, but most are in daytime and are missed. This one was extraordinarily bright in the daylight.” Lunsford said it’s “pretty rare” for fireballs to produce a loud explosion. For that to happen, he explained, the meteor must have survived intact until breaking up about five miles above Earth. Most fireballs are visible at 50 miles above Earth.

 ”If you hear a sonic boom or loud explosion, that’s a good indication that some fragments may have reached the ground,” Lunsford told The Associated Press. “We’ll have to get some people to work on it to pinpoint where it broke up and see if anything can be found on the ground.” Lunsford said more than 20 people in the two states had filed reports with his group by midmorning about seeing the fireball. “I have been looking at the sky for 30 years, and I have never witnessed something so amazing and puzzling. It is an event that makes you glad to be alive,” said Matthew Neal of San Francisco. “The main body was bright green and the head was bright red and white.”

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DARPA: April 20, 2012Aerodynamic design validated and new understanding of thermal material properties gainedFollowing an extensive seven-month analysis of data collected from the Aug. 11, 2011, second flight of DARPA’s Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2), an independent engineering review board (ERB) investigating the cause of a flight anomaly completed its report. The findings of the ERB validated the vehicle’s aerodynamic design and uncovered new information regarding the thermal material properties of the vehicle.“The greatest achievement from Flight Two, which the ERB’s findings underscored, was that we successfully incorporated aerodynamic knowledge gained from the first flight into the second flight,” said Air Force Maj. Chris Schulz, DARPA program manager, who holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering.A technology demonstration and data-gathering platform, the HTV-2’s second test flight was conducted to validate current models and increase technical understanding of the hypersonic regime. The flight successfully demonstrated stable aerodynamically-controlled flight at speeds up to Mach 20 (twenty times the speed of sound) for nearly three minutes. Approximately nine minutes into the test flight, the vehicle experienced a series of shocks culminating in an anomaly, which prompted the autonomous flight safety system to use the vehicle’s aerodynamic systems to make a controlled descent and splashdown into the ocean.“The initial shockwave disturbances experienced during second flight, from which the vehicle was able to recover and continue controlled flight, exceeded by more than 100 times what the vehicle was designed to withstand,” said DARPA Acting Director, Kaigham J. Gabriel. “That’s a major validation that we’re advancing our understanding of aerodynamic control for hypersonic flight.”The ERB concluded that the “most probable cause of the HTV-2 Flight 2 premature flight termination was unexpected aeroshell degradation, creating multiple upsets of increasing severity that ultimately activated the Flight Safety System.”Based on state-of-the-art models, ground testing of high-temperature materials and understanding of thermal effects in other more well-known flight regimes, a gradual wearing away of the vehicle’s skin as it reached stress tolerance limits was expected. However, larger than anticipated portions of the vehicle’s skin peeled from the aerostructure. The resulting gaps created strong, impulsive shock waves around the vehicle as it travelled nearly 13,000 miles per hour, causing the vehicle to roll abruptly. Based on knowledge gained from the first flight in 2010 and incorporated into the second flight, the vehicle’s aerodynamic stability allowed it to right itself successfully after several shockwave-induced rolls. Eventually, however, the severity of the continued disturbances finally exceeded the vehicle’s ability to recover.According to Schulz, “HTV-2’s first flight test corrected our models regarding aerodynamic design within this flight regime. We applied that data in flight test two, which ultimately led to stable aerodynamically controlled flight. Data collected during the second test flight revealed new knowledge about thermal-protective material properties and uncertainties for Mach 20 flight inside the atmosphere, which can now be used to adjust our assumptions based on actual flight data and modify our modeling and simulation to better characterize thermal uncertainties and determine how to assess integrated thermal systems.”Aerodynamic assumptions and extrapolations from known flight regimes proved inadequate when preparing for HTV-2 inaugural flight test. The data from second flight revealed that extrapolating from known flight regimes and relying solely on advanced thermal modeling and ground testing could not successfully predict the harsh realities of Mach 20 atmospheric flight. “A group of nationally-recognized experts from government and academia came together to analyze the flight data and conduct extensive additional modeling and ground testing for this review,” Schulz said. “The result of these findings is a profound advancement in understanding the areas we need to focus on to advance aerothermal structures for future hypersonic vehicles. Only actual flight data could have revealed this to us.”Moving forward, the HTV-2 program will incorporate new knowledge gained to improve models for characterizing thermal uncertainties and heat-stress allowances for the vehicle’s outer shell. The remediation phase will involve further analysis and ground testing using flight data to validate new tools for this flight regime. The ERB findings and remediation phase efforts will inform policy, acquisition and operational decisions for future Conventional Prompt Global Strike initiatives executed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology & Logistics, Strategic Warfare directorate—the goal of which, ultimately, is to have the capability to reach anywhere in the world in less than one hour.

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Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/20/pakistani-civilian-airplane-crashes-with-127-onboard/?test=latestnews#ixzz1scFsrDH5

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The Sea Shadow - the first stealth naval warship is for sale. Problem is - you can’t sail her. Anyone who wins the bid has to promise to scrap it and the secret floating dock it was housed in.LINK

 Sea Shadow was built in 1984 and used in secret but normal service until her public debut in 1993, to examine the application of stealth technology on naval vessels. In addition, the ship was designed to test the use of automation to enable the reduction of crew size.

The ship was created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Navy and Lockheed. Sea Shadow was developed at Lockheed’s Redwood City, California, facility, inside the Hughes Mining Barge (HMB-1), which functioned as a floating drydock during construction and testing.[1] She is sometimes referred to as “USS Sea Shadow”; however, this designation is inappropriate as she was never a fully commissioned ship of the U.S. Navy.Sea Shadow has a SWATH hull design. Below the water are submerged twin hulls, each with a propeller, aft stabilizer, and inboard hydrofoil. The portion of the ship above water is connected to the hulls via the two angled struts.

The SWATH design helps the ship remain stable even in very rough water of up to sea state 6 (wave height of 18 feet (5.5 m) or “very rough” sea). The shape of the superstructure has sometimes been compared to the casemate of the ironclad ram CSS Virginia of the American Civil War.[1]The T-AGOS 19-and-23-class oceanographic ships have inherited the stabilizer and canard method to help perform their stability-sensitive surveillance missions.[1]Sea Shadow has only 12 bunks aboard, one small microwave oven, a refrigerator and table.

It was never intended to be mission capable and was never commissioned, although she is listed in the Naval Vessel Register.Sea Shadow was revealed to the public in 1993, and was housed at the San Diego Naval Station until September 2006, when it was relocated with the Hughes Mining Barge - inside which it still resides - to the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in Benicia, CA.

The vessels are available for donation to a maritime museum.[1]Sea Shadow was also the inspiration for the stealth ship in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.Since 2006 the U.S Navy has tried to sell the Sea Shadow to the highest bidder but as of February 2009 nobody has bid.

 Not having found any viable offer to take in the Sea Shadow by June 18, 2011, the Navy finally decided to set it for “dismantling and recycling”.[3] As of June 2011 the Sea Shadow is still being stored inside its barge at Suisun Bay awaiting its fate.[4] As of April 2012 Sea Shadow is listed for dismantling sale on gsaauctions.gov.

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Seoul claims North Korea is assembling another heavy ballistic missile similar to the ill-fated one launched on April 13.Seoul’s assumptions are based on American space reconnaissance data. They say both rockets were delivered at the site simultaneously around March 23. One rocket was unsuccessfully launched last week, falling to pieces less than two minutes after the launch. The second rocket, presumably of the same type and specifications, is being prepared for launch in a hangar at at the Tongch’ang-dong Space Launch Center in woodland some 50 kilometers from the border with China.Seoul believes Pyongyang wants to compensate for the unfortunate launch of the Unha-3 that was supposed to take first North Korean satellite into an orbit.The UN Security Council banned North Korea to launch any ballistic missiles of both military and space research scientific missions after Pyongyang made two attempts to test ballistic missiles in 2006 and 2009.Despite the prohibition, North Korea will continue to develop its military might, promised country’s new leader Kim Jong-un.“National military industrial complex must develop a growing number of advanced weapons of the highest quality,” stressed the North Korean leader in his first statement since coming to power last year.After a successful test of a nuclear warhead in 2006 North Korea secured a role of an international pariah, falling under numerous UN-imposed sanctions. This explains why the reaction of the international community on North

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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has raised a 20,000 strong force to provide foolproof security to its nuclear weapons and strategic assets, the military said on Thursday.

A batch of 900 soldiers of the new ‘Security Force’ of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), which is responsible for managing the country’s nuclear arsenal, graduated from the Baloch and frontier force regimental centres in Abbotabad on Thursday, the military said in a statement.

“With the induction of these newly trained soldiers, the strength of the SPD Security Force touches a figure of 20,000,” the statement said.

The Security Force has been raised against the backdrop of concerns expressed by politicians about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal being targeted by the US in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of extremists.

The statement said the SPD had undertaken a “comprehensive plan to significantly augment the capacity of its Security Force to ensure foolproof security of strategic assets”ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has raised a 20,000 strong force to provide foolproof security to its nuclear weapons and strategic assets, the military said on Thursday.

A batch of 900 soldiers of the new ‘Security Force’ of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), which is responsible for managing the country’s nuclear arsenal, graduated from the Baloch and frontier force regimental centres in Abbotabad on Thursday, the military said in a statement.

“With the induction of these newly trained soldiers, the strength of the SPD Security Force touches a figure of 20,000,” the statement said.

The Security Force has been raised against the backdrop of concerns expressed by politicians about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal being targeted by the US in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of extremists.

The statement said the SPD had undertaken a “comprehensive plan to significantly augment the capacity of its Security Force to ensure foolproof security of strategic assets”

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A small plane with an apparently incapacitated pilot that crashed just after 9 am in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday has sunk, said Coast Guard officials. Crews flying over the site saw no signs that its pilot survived the crash, the report said.

The Cessna twin engine propeller plane went down Thursday about three hours after two F-15 fighter jets tried to make contact with the unresponsive pilot, who was the only person onboard.

The pilot was identified as Peter Hertzak of Slidell, La., NBC station WSDU of New Orleans reported.

Coast Guard Chief John Edwards said the plane landed right-side up on the ocean surface and floated for a while, but monitoring planes did not see a life raft deploy and never made contact with the pilot.

The Coast Guard spotted the Cessna 421 twin engine propeller aircraft circling erratically over the Gulf of Mexico at about 6:30 a.m. and the pilot was unresponsive to radio calls, according to Coast Guard District 8 Chief Petty Officer John Edwards in New Orleans.

Air Force jets dispatched to look into the plane were unable to see the pilot because of fog and icing that obscured the plane’s windows, Coast Guard officials said.
The two F-15s from the New Orleans National Guard were already on a mission over the Gulf said a release from Edwards.

The Jacksonville Air Traffic Control Center asked the military if jets could check on the plane, which was orbiting near one of Eglin Air Force Base’s warning areas over the Gulf, Edwards said. Eglin is on Florida’s Panhandle.

A federal official says the plane took off Thursday morning from Slidell, La., en route to Sarasota, Fla. The Coast Guard was contacted after air traffic control lost contact with the pilot about 6 a.m. It flew until just after noon and then crashed into the water 120 miles west of Tampa, Fla., according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

In a search and rescue effort launched in the hours before the plane crashed, the Coast Guard dispatched an HC-144 Ocean Sentry from Mobile, Ala., an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Clearwater, Fla., and the Coast Guard Cutter Coho, an 87-foot patrol boat homeported in Panama City, Fla., the Coast Guard web site said.

In a previous incident involving a “ghost plane,” in 1999, the pilot and five passengers - including professional golfer Payne Stewart - were incapacitated when their Learjet lost cabin pressure. The plane flew on for four hours before finally crashing in rural South Dakota. All six people were killed.

FLIGHTAWARE LINK

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(AP) BATH, Maine - An enormous, expensive and technology-laden warship that some Navy leaders once tried to kill because of its cost is now viewed as an important part of the Obama administration’s Asia-Pacific strategy, with advanced capabilities that the Navy’s top officer says represent the Navy’s future.

The stealthy, guided-missile Zumwalt that’s taking shape at Bath Iron Works is the biggest destroyer ever built for the U.S. Navy.

The low-to-the-water warship will feature a wave-piercing hull, composite deckhouse, electric drive propulsion, advanced sonar, missiles, and powerful guns that fire rocket-propelled warheads as far as 100 miles. It’s also longer and heavier than existing destroyers — but will have half the crew because of automated systems.

“With its stealth, incredibly capable sonar system, strike capability and lower manning requirements — this is our future,” concluded Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, who gave the warship his endorsement on a visit last week to Bath Iron Works, where the ships are being built.

It wasn’t always this way.

The General Accounting Office expressed concerns that the Navy was trying to incorporate too much new technology. Some Navy officials pointed out that it’s less capable than existing destroyers when it comes to missile defense, and a defense analyst warned that it would be vulnerable while operating close to shore for fire support.

Even its “tumblehome” hull was criticized as potentially unstable in certain situations.

The 600-foot-long ships are so big that the General Dynamics-owned shipyard spent million to construct a 106-foot-tall building to assemble the giant hull segments.

And then there’s the cost, roughly .8 billion apiece, according to the Navy’s latest proposed budget.

Including research and development, the cost grows to billion apiece, said Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

Because of cost, the originally envisioned 32 ships dipped to 24 and then seven. Eventually, program was truncated to just three. The first, the Zumwalt, will be christened next year and delivered to the Navy in 2014.

But Greenert told reporters that the ship fits perfectly into the new emphasis on bolstering the U.S. military presence in the Pacific in response to Asia’s growing economic importance and China’s rise as a military power.

Greenert didn’t go into detail on how the new ship could be used. But the Defense Department has expressed concerns that China is modernizing its Navy with a near-term goal of stopping or delaying U.S. intervention in a conflict involving Taiwan. China considers the self-governing island a renegade province.

Defense officials also see a potential flashpoint in the South China Sea, where China’s territorial claims overlap with those of other countries including Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

The Zumwalt’s new technology will allow the warship to deter and defeat aggression and to maintain operations in areas where an enemy seeks to deny access, both on the open ocean and in operations closer to shore, the Navy says.

Jay Korman, industry analyst with The Avascent Group, said the warship uses so much new technology that it’s viewed by the Navy as a “silver bullet” answer to threats. The only problem is the cost.

“They were looking to introduce so many new technologies at once, and the cost ballooned,” he said. “I don’t think people have changed their minds that it’s a capable ship. It’s just too expensive.”

Unlike another new ship entering the Navy’s arsenal — the small and speedy “littoral combat ship” — the Zumwalt will be heavily armored and armed.

The Zumwalt’s 155 mm deck guns were built to pound the shore with guided projectiles to pave the way for the Marines to arrive in landing craft, and they’re far more cost-effective in certain situations than cruise missiles, said Eric Wertheim, author of the “Naval Institute’s Guide to Combat Fleets of the World.”

The smaller crew also represents a substantial cost savings, he added.

Down the road, the ship could one day be equipped with an electromagnetic railgun, a powerful weapon that uses a magnetic field and electric current to fire a projectile at several times the speed of sound.

Production will stop after three ships, and the Navy will go back to building tried-and-true Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, 510-foot-long ships featuring a versatile Aegis radar system that’s being modified for ballistic missile defense. Even with modifications, the ships will cost far less than the Zumwalt-class ships.

For Bath’s 5,400 workers, the Zumwalt has been both exciting and challenging, with a new design and new construction techniques. In the coming months, workers will take delivery of the composite deck house and helicopter hangar, which are being built at the Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi. Those will be placed on the Bath-built hull.

“If anybody can do it and do it successfully, then I’m confident that’s us,” said Jay Wadleigh, vice president of Local S6 of the Machinists Union in Bath.

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By Greg Miller

The CIA is seeking authority to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen by launching strikes against terrorism suspects even when it does not know the identities of those who could be killed, U.S. officials said.

Securing permission to use these “signature strikes” would allow the agency to hit targets based solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior, such as imagery showing militants gathering at known al-Qaeda compounds or unloading explosives.

Violence in Yemen has repeatedly erupted between government and opposition forces, as well as between the government and al-Qaeda.

The practice has been a core element of the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan for several years. CIA Director David H. Petraeus has requested permission to use the tactic against the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, which has emerged as the most pressing terrorism threat to the United States, officials said.

If approved, the change would probably accelerate a campaign of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen that is already on a record pace, with at least eight attacks in the past four months.

For President Obama, an endorsement of signature strikes would mean a significant, and potentially risky, policy shift. The administration has placed tight limits on drone operations in Yemen to avoid being drawn into an often murky regional conflict and risk turning militants with local agendas into al-Qaeda recruits.

A senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations, declined to talk about what he described as U.S. “tactics” in Yemen, but he said that “there is still a very firm emphasis on being surgical and targeting only those who have a direct interest in attacking the United States.”

U.S. officials acknowledge that the standard has not always been upheld. Last year, a U.S. drone strike inadvertently killed the American son of al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki. The teenager had never been accused of terrorist activity and was killed in a strike aimed at other militants.

Some U.S. officials have voiced concern that such incidents could become more frequent if the CIA is given the authority to use signature strikes.

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Reuters - A JetBlue pilot whose midair meltdown prompted a cross-country flight to make an emergency landing in west Texas last month will plead he was insane at the time of the incident, his lawyer said in a federal court filing on Wednesday.

Attorney Dean Roper filed the notice in U.S. District Court in Amarillo, Texas, saying pilot Clayton Osbon would use an insanity defense.

Osbon, 49, was charged earlier this month with interfering in the operations of a flight crew after he allegedly screamed and pounded on the cockpit door, forcing a March 27 flight from New York to Las Vegas to land in Amarillo.

Osbon was undergoing court-ordered psychiatric examination to determine if he could stand trial. The outcome of those examinations has not been disclosed.

A federal indictment described a harrowing flight during which Osbon had to be subdued and forcibly restrained from re-entering the cockpit.

The FBI said Osbon began saying, “Things just don’t matter” while he was at the controls of the Airbus A320 about halfway into the five-hour flight, and that he told the flight’s first officer, “We’re not going to Vegas.”

After the pilot suddenly left the cockpit and started running up and down the aisle, banging on a restroom door, and attempted to force his way back into the locked cockpit, several passengers restrained him until the plane landed.

The FBI said that while he was being restrained, Osbon yelled, “Pray now for Jesus Christ,” started yelling about Iraq, Iran and terrorists, and shouted at one point toward the cockpit, “Guys, push it to full throttle!”

Neither Osbon’s lawyer nor prosecutors could immediately be reached for comment on the insanity defense.

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New Delhi (CNN) — India said Thursday that it had successfully carried out the maiden test flight of its longest-range nuclear-capable missile, which can apparently travel more than 5,000 kilometers.

The Agni V rocket took off around 8:03 a.m. local time (10.33 p.m. Wednesday ET) and “met all the mission objectives,” said S.P. Das, director of the missile test site.
The missile, whose stated range of about 3,100 miles puts major Chinese cities within its striking distance, was fired from the coast of the eastern Indian state of Orissa.

The Indian defense minister, A.K. Antony, congratulated the Defense Research and Development Organization for the “immaculate” success of the missile launch.

India says the missile development is not an aggressive initiative and that its military program is based on building a credible minimum deterrent with a “no-first-use” policy.

“Our missiles are purely for deterrence,” Ravi Gupta, a spokesman for the Defense Research and Development Organization, had said ahead of the launch.
In November, India successfully tested the fourth version of Agni, meaning “fire” in Hindi, with a range of 3,500 km. Built years earlier, Agni I could travel 700 km, according to Indian defense authorities.

India borders two nuclear-armed states — its arch-rival Pakistan; and China, with which it fought a brief but bitter war in 1962.
The launch of the Agni V is “another milestone in our quest to add to the credibility of our security and preparedness and to continuously explore the frontiers of science,” India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Thursday.
The flight of the missile is a significant move to demonstrate India’s technological competence, Uday Bhaskar, a strategic expert, said earlier this week.
But the homegrown missile will undergo several tests more before it becomes fully operational, he said.

A successful experiment, Bhaskar said, would bring India closer to the group of nations capable of building intercontinental missiles.
Currently, the five permanent member nations of the U.N. Security Council — the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France — are thought to have developed such technology, he said.

As well as homegrown hardware like the Agni, India buys a lot of arms from overseas. It has overtaken China as the world’s biggest importer of weapons, according to a recent report by the the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Siemon Wezeman, a senior analyst with SIPRI, said last month that India’s defense spending reflects its regional security concerns and Delhi’s global aspirations.

China’s relative decline as an arms importer comes at a time when it is increasing its overall defense budget, investing in major projects such as the development of a stealth fighter jet and an aircraft carrier program. Many of these weapons are produced domestically.

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CONFUSION reigned among the crew of a Jetstar flight forced into a last-minute aborted landing at Singapore Airport, air safety investigators have found.

Jetstar flight JQ57 was flying from Darwin to Singapore’s Changi Airport on May 27, 2010, when a series of distractions forced a go-around landing.

Among them was the sound of text messages being sent to the captain’s phone as the plane came within 2000 feet (609m) from the ground, according to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau report.

The first officer, who was flying the plane at the time, repeatedly attempted to alert the distracted captain that he wanted to pull out of the landing.

However the captain failed to respond to the request for a missed approach altitude of 5000ft.

“The FO (first officer) recalled that, after still not getting a response from the captain, he looked over and, on seeing the captain preoccupied with his mobile phone, set the missed approach altitude himself,” the report stated.

The captain said he was in the process of unlocking and turning off his phone and did not hear the call for a go-around.

According to the report the pilots failed to adequately prepare for the landing in several ways and a lack of communication left them confused by the other’s actions.

“The simulator session also identified a period of about two minutes between about 2800ft and 1000ft in the descent where no control manipulations or systems activation was recorded,” the report said.

“In contrast, during that period, a number of tasks should have normally been completed in preparation for landing.”

These actions include putting the landing great down (which was still not deployed at under 500ft), selecting the auto brake and changing the configuration of the flaps.

It is likely that the first officer’s performance was “adversely affected by fatigue”, while the captain did not appropriately monitor his actions or the aircraft’s configuration.

The jet was coming in to land around thunderstorms, but this was not deemed a factor in the incident.

Jetstar has reviewed its procedures since the incident including changes to its training regime.

A Jetstar spokesman said the airline is using the incident as part of its regular training for pilots but that the safety of the aircraft “was never compromised”.

“We take a very conservative approach to how far before touchdown an aircraft should be completely configured for landing,” Jetstar’s Chief Pilot, Captain Mark Rindfleish, said.

“In the case of JQ57, pilot distraction meant all the landing checklist items weren’t completed before the aircraft passed an altitude of 500 feet, at which point a go-around was required under our operating procedures.

“Human factors, like distraction, are why airlines have so many procedural safeguards built into how they fly.

“The combination of factors on JQ57 has provided new learnings and the opportunity to add to these safeguards, which we take very seriously.”

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A sleepy pilot who mistook the planet Venus for an oncoming plane sent his Air Canada jet into a steep dive that bounced passengers off the ceiling, injuring 16, and nearly caused a collision with a real plane flying 1,000 feet lower.

Air Canada initially described the injuries to 14 passengers and two flight attendants as the result of “severe turbulence,” but a report released this week by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada explains what really happened over the Atlantic Ocean on an overnight flight from Toronto to Zurich on Jan. 14, 2011.

According to the report, the plane’s first officer had been sleeping, as is permitted by Air Canada on transatlantic flights, when he was awakened by the pilot’s report of the plane’s position.

The pilot indicated that a U.S. Air Force cargo plane was approaching the Air Canada 767-300 at an elevation about 1,000 feet below the passenger jet.

The “confused and disoriented” first officer, however, believed that the planet Venus was the approaching plane, and was coming right at the Air Canada jet. He forced the plane into a dive.

Passengers who were not wearing seatbelts, many of them asleep, were slammed into the ceiling and overhead bins.

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Realizing what had happened, the pilot was able to pull the plane out of the dive after it had descended 400 feet. The U.S. military plane passed safely underneath.

Seven of the injured were treated in a Swiss hospital after the plane landed safely.

Astronomers say that on that night in January 2011, Venus would have look exceedingly bright from the airplane’s cockpit, and a groggy pilot could easily have mistaken the planet for a plane.

“It looks like the headlight on an airplane,” said Joseph Rao of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “It’s exceedingly bright. It doesn’t twinkle, it’s not like a star in that it twinkles. It looks like a steady, white spot of light in the sky. In fact we call it the evening star but they really should call it the evening lantern because it is so much brighter than any of the other stars.”

“On that night it would have been ten times brighter than the brightest star,” explained Dr. Arlin Crotts of Columbia University.

John Nance, a former commercial pilot and ABC News aviation analyst, said it was “not outlandish” for a pilot to confuse an object as bright as Venus for an oncoming aircraft. “What’s surprising is that it went far enough to take evasive action,” said Nance.

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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) – You almost want to rub your eyes when you first see it. It doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t belong there. But there it is, the space shuttle Discovery mounted on top of a specially modified Boeing 747 airplane.

At first light Tuesday, Discovery flew out from the Kennedy Space Center one last time. In a salute to the past and all those who were part of the shuttle program, the aircraft flew over launchpad A, down the beach and over the space center visitor complex before heading north.

Discovery’s next stop will be its last. The oldest of the three orbiters, with more than 148 million miles clocked, is going to the Smithsonian in Washington.

“Bittersweet,” said Discovery’s last commander, Steve Lindsey, “is an overused word, but it is sad.” Lindsey and the five others who flew last February on mission 133 came out to say goodbye.
With every step toward retirement, the shuttle fleet becomes more a part of history. In 30 years of flying there were grand accomplishments and heart-wrenching tragedies. A space flying machine with wings, it was like nothing ever built.

But dwelling in that past would be a mistake, Lindsey said.
“We’ve got to move on, we’ve got to make sure that spaceflight doesn’t die in this nation,” he said. “We still have (the) space station going, but if we don’t get ourselves heavy lift, get going with exploration or part of what I’m working on — the commercial program — then we risk losing this as a nation, and I don’t want to do that.”

In some ways, the past is meeting the future here. Just a few miles to the south at Cape Canaveral, Space X is in its final preparations to launch its Dragon spacecraft. It is a hugely critical test scheduled for the end of April. Space X hopes to be the first commercial company to rendezvous and then berth with the international space station.

Next year Space X plans to start ferrying cargo to the station and, in four years, U.S. astronauts.
Alvin Drew, a mission specialist on Discovery, said these companies vying to pick up where the shuttle left off are taking a leap of faith.

“These guys who run the commercial companies will tell you with the money they could have been there in 2015 if the money was there,” Drew said. “You tie yourself to government funding, you are making a tough deal, because there’s no guarantee the succeeding administrations or congresses are going to continue your funding.”

Commercial companies say their new vehicles will be many times safer than the shuttles. It has to be that way now, Drew said.

“We had bigger budgets and a bigger tolerance for failure and loss of life back in the ’60s and early ’70s than we have in this particular generation,” Drew said. “So the shuttle was built for that generation of explorers and I’m not sure it fit well in our current society or current culture. The risks you would take for the shuttle I think are higher than most people are willing to accept in 2012.”
When Discovery gets to Washington, it will replace Enterprise, which now sits in the Smithsonian. Enterprise, a test shuttle that never flew in space, will go to New York and eventually into its new home at the Intrepid Museum.

The shuttle Endeavour will, by the end of the year, be heading to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Atlantis will take up permanent residence at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. That will be the final exclamation point to the end of an era of space exploration.

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There’s your problem!

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By EVAN RAMSTAD WSJ

SEOUL—North Korea launched a multistage rocket Friday morning, again defying countries that want it to stop pursuing advanced weapons, but it reportedly blew up less than two minutes into flight and parts crashed in the Yellow Sea off South Korea.

The rocket took off around 7:39 a.m. local time from a new launch facility in the country’s northwest corner and flew south towards Japan’s Ryuku Islands, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia.

About 90 seconds into flight, roughly the time its first stage should have burned out and second stage kicked in, the rocket flared brightly and apparently exploded, according to ABC News, which cited U.S. defense officials. Parts fell into water near South Korea’s Jeju Island, South Korean media reported.

A South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman said the rocket “seems to have fallen apart” minutes after launch.

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