The Air Force Office of Scientific Research and NASA joined forces earlier this month to boost a small, all-carbon-fiber, minimum-diameter rocket using an environmentally safe propellant, known as ALICE, for its aluminum powder and ice composition. The fuels team included researchers from Georgia Tech, Purdue University, and Pennsylvania University. Purdue’s Dr. Steven Son attributed the projects success to “a sustained collaborative research effort on the fundamentals of the combustion of nanoscale aluminum and water over the last few years.” He believes the ALICE propellant “can be improved with the addition of oxidizers,” making it a “potential solid rocket propellant on Earth” but also one that could be produced outside this planet, say on the Moon or Mars, “instead of being transported at a large cost.” (AFOSR report by Maria Callier)
B-52 Stratofortress bombers marked a new first in Operation Epic Fury when some of the BUFFs flew over Iran carrying JDAM-guided gravity bombs, according to people familiar with the matter. The development signals a weakening of Iranian air defenses and a new use for the venerable bomber in the nearly…