The innovative engineers and technicians at Arnold Engineering and Development Center in Tennessee developed a High Speed Fan Facility to verify the viability of the Towed Airborne Plume Simulator to test early warning sensors on military aircraft. TAPS will be carried aloft, towed behind an aircraft, but first USAF wanted to test it on the ground. AEDC journalist Philip Lorenz III reports that the center used off-the-shelf components and cannibalized ducting to construct a temporary HSFF to test TAPS on the ground.
United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket is slated to fly its second national security mission in February—nearly six months after its first operational launch and almost a year after it was certified to fly military payloads for the Space Force.
