"Applied Defense Solutions is making a major contribution to our country's technological advances with its participation in NASA's IBEX mission," said Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, who represents Maryland's 7th District where Applied Defense Solutions is headquartered.

"This opportunity demonstrates the importance of small business in spurring innovation and ensuring the success of sensitive missions involving advanced technology applications."

"I fought hard in Congress to keep the pioneering Hubble Space Telescope flying, which was built with Maryland brainpower. And I'm glad to throw my support behind Applied Defense Solutions, which continues to uphold Maryland's tradition of cutting-edge space science," said former Congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley (1985 - 1995) - Maryland 2nd Congressional District

Applied Defense Solutions (ADS) is responsible for flight dynamics for the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) satellite. ADS has been working directly with Southwest Research Institute (SRI) to design and model the unique, and sometimes "chaotic," trajectory associated with this critical mission.

ADS' Principal Astrodynamics Specialist John Carrico, an internationally recognized authority on flight dynamics, led a team of aerospace engineers that made the mission possible. Carrico and his team from ADS worked on the IBEX mission for more than a year. Following Sunday's launch, Carrico's team is responsible for positioning IBEX into the planned orbit.

"This trajectory is very unique and exhibits some of the phenomena associated with the mathematical definition of "chaos;" this will really test the limits of currently available technologies." said Carrico.

"Once IBEX is safely placed on orbit, flight dynamics operations will be moved from Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Virginia, to ADS headquarters in Fulton, Maryland. Our team uses some new and innovative technologies to dramatically reduce the manpower, hardware, and cost required to fly this satellite. If we had to, we could fly this bird with a laptop and an aircard from a coffee shop on the corner," said ADS president Ryan Frederic.

"We congratulate Applied Defense Solutions on their tremendous success with this mission and are proud to support their continued growth here in Maryland," said Clarence T. Bishop, Deputy Secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, which assisted the company with a grant to attend the Paris Air Show in 2007.

"It is critical that Maryland continues to foster a supportive environment for home-grown companies like Applied Defense Solutions, which will ensure that Maryland is well positioned for tomorrow's economy."

ADS has partnered with a commercial software provider, Analytical Graphics (AGI) of Exton, PA, to support the IBEX mission with considerably less manpower than similar missions have traditionally required. With NASA's tight budgets, these decreased flight operations costs allow ADS customers to invest more heavily in the mission's science, where it matters most.

"AGI is thrilled that our state-of-the-art flight dynamics software will play a part in ensuring the success of this exciting NASA mission. ADS' operational flight dynamics expertise and experience with our analysis and visualization software will greatly benefit the IBEX team," said Paul Graziani, AGI president and CEO.

According to the IBEX Web site, IBEX was launched from Kwajalein Island, Marshall Islands.

An airplane called an L-1011 took a Pegasus rocket to 40,000 ft. The Pegasus rocket then fired its own rockets to propel it and the IBEX spacecraft into space. IBEX will climb into an orbit that goes more than 80% of the way to the moon.

This orbit is very high, which allows the satellite to spend much of the time out of the Earth's magnetosphere, reducing interference with its mission and observations.

The IBEX spacecraft, a small satellite the size of a school bus tire, has a mission to observe the solar system boundary while in orbit around earth. IBEX will collect particles called energetic neutral atoms (ENA's) to provide information about the solar system's heliosphere by travelling toward Earth from beyond Pluto.

By collecting these particles from this protective bubble created by the Sun, scientists are able to make the first map of the boundary of our solar system. The heliosphere shields human spaceflight from most dangerous cosmic radiation, and scientists have recently discovered that this protective bubble is shrinking for reasons currently unknown.

Related Links
IBEX mission
Applied Defense
The latest information about the Commercial Satellite Industry

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News