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by   Mariella Moon   |   @mariella_moon   NASA's Detect-and-Avoidance (DAA) system for drones is looking mighty promising. The agency has just finished its latest phase of of test flights using a remote-controlled Ikhana aircraft equipped with DAA sensors over the Mojave desert in California. NASA's Dennis Hines says they still have to fully analyze the data they gathered from the flights -- the third in a series -- but they found that the drone successfully alerted it remote pilots and performed preprogrammed maneuvers when faced with obstacles. Frank Pace, the president of Aircraft Systems for General Atomics Aeronautical Systems said the flight tests' favorable outcome "represents the maturity of [their] detect-and-avoid system." General Atomics created one of the  DAA tech's  three sensors, particularly its radar system. A company called BAE Systems developed one of the other sensors: a satellite-based navigation tool that determines and...

NASA weighs its options for lighting up moon bases When lunar astronauts flick on their televisions after a long day of prospecting, they'll have a trashcan-size nuclear reactor to thank for their nightly dose of prime time. NASA, looking past the already daunting task of simply getting humans to the moon by 2020, recently started considering proposals for ways to power lunar habitats. Batteries and fuel cells provide only short-term solutions. Solar power would be limited where a single night lasts as long as 354 hours. So space-agency officials have started making plans to go nuclear. The outline for the Fission Surface Power (FSP) plan is fairly straightforward: An underground, uranium-powered nuclear reactor produces heat and drives a power converter to generate electricity. The nuke plant would churn out 40 kilowatts of electricity, enough power to provide life support to four astronauts with plenty left over to mine oxygen from lunar soil and run moon buggies. NASA is mu...

A company owned by Google's founders has just bought a 1982 light attack Dornier Alpha Jet. H211 LLC owns several aircraft that are frequently used by Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and in an "unusual" agreement signed last year, H211 managed to get the rights to operate from an airstrip ten minutes away from Google HQ near the south end of San Francisco Bay, California. This isn't any ordinary airstrip, it is Moffett Field, owned by the NASA Ames Research Center… Not just anyone can land their private jet at Moffett Field. Located right next to Silicon Valley, it has had a lot of interest from the hi-tech billionaires to get permission to fly in and out of there. But there's a problem, Moffett Field isn't an ordinary airstrip, it is owned by NASA . NASA is a government department and with that comes certain rules. Unless the aircraft has a direct relationship with the NASA research being carried out, or a military flight, you'll have to ...