Critical & Emerging Technologies

Vehicles propelled by rocket engines are commonly called rockets. Rocket vehicles carry their own oxidizer, unlike most combustion engines, so rocket engines can be used in a vacuum to propel spacecraft and ballistic missiles. Compared to other types of jet engines, rocket engines are the lightest and have the highest …

For many people, today’s world is an insecure place, full of threats on many fronts. Protracted crises, violent conflicts, natural disasters, persistent poverty, epidemics and economic downturns impose hardships and undercut prospects for peace, stability, and sustainable development. Such crises are complex, entailing multiple forms of human insecurity. When they …

The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia. This implication by the National Defense Strategy Commission stands in contrast to the past several decades during which the U.S. possessed military power without equal. A key capability to …

In 2018, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)  named the Pratt & Whitney single crystal turbine blade an historic mechanical engineering landmark. These blades, which can be found in many modern, high-performance gas turbines (a.k.a. jet engines)—including the ones powering the F-22 Raptor, and larger electricity-producing turbines—are grown from a …

The COVID-19 pandemic, while demonstrating the nation’s vulnerabilities to biothreats, has also shown the fragility of the supply chain. The United States relies on foreign suppliers for a number of critical components including commodity chemicals, rare earth elements and active pharmaceutical ingredients, she said. Ensuring a resilient domestic supply chain …

The Department of Defense (DOD) acquires goods and services from contractors, federal arsenals, and shipyards to support military operations. The acquisition is a broad term that applies to more than just the purchase of an item or service; the acquisition process encompasses the design, engineering, construction, testing, deployment, sustainment, and …

We live in an increasingly interconnected world, one in which mobile communications provide a significant element of this interconnectivity. This increasing demand for high speed, low latency networks supporting mobile connectivity is leading the definition of 5th generation mobile networks. These next generation networks are driven not only by changing …

Radar, is an electromagnetic sensor used for detecting, locating, tracking, and recognizing objects of various kinds at considerable distances. It operates by transmitting electromagnetic energy toward objects, commonly referred to as targets, and observing the echoes returned from them.  Energy is emitted in various frequencies and wavelengths from large wavelength radio …