The media event
Article Abstract:
Problems with the $2.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope were the dominant engineering news story of 1990. Soon after being placed into its 610-kilometer-high orbit, a loop of cable on one of two high-gain communications antennas was found to be tied to the antenna's mast improperly, limiting the time data could be sent back to earth. Then the solar panels were found to vibrate for three to six minutes whenever the spacecraft passed into or out of sunlight, which skewed sensors fixing the telescope on a guide star and disrupted observations in progress. The biggest problem, however, was when it was determined that the telescope's 2.4-meter-diameter main mirror was ground and polished to the wrong shape and was unable to focus an image. The antenna problem was easy to fix, but the vibration and blurry vision problems have been more difficult to solve.
Publication Name: IEEE Spectrum
Subject: Engineering and manufacturing industries
ISSN: 0018-9235
Year: 1991
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Bright ideas
Article Abstract:
Intersource Technologies Inc's E-Lamp (electronic lamp) is a bulb with a life expectancy of 20 years that combines the energy efficiency of fluorescent lamps with the compactness and light intensity of incandescent bulbs. The E-Lamp is an RF-excited electrodeless fluorescent light source featuring a 13.56-MHz crystal-controlled oscillator that generates RF signals which are amplified and emitted into the glass bulb through an energy coupling antenna. Mercury vapor is ionized by RF energy inside the glass assembly. The mercury ions resonate at the ultraviolet wavelength of 254 nm as the ions transit between energy states. The E-Lamp is more efficient than incandescent bulbs, which lose 95 percent of their energy in heat, because the E-Lamp requires only 25 W of ac power to produce as much light as a 100-W incandescent bulb.
Publication Name: IEEE Spectrum
Subject: Engineering and manufacturing industries
ISSN: 0018-9235
Year: 1992
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U.S. science and technology museums - I
Article Abstract:
Engineers and their children visited twenty hands-on science centers and history technology museums to check the exhibits accuracy and currency. Most engineers considered the accuracy of exhibits high, while some felt some of the exhibits would be too complex for the general public. The currency of the information presented ranged from dismal to superb. According to the children, some exhibits were mute and motionless artifacts, whereas some museums seemed the best place they ever visited. Locations include the Motorola Museum of Electronics in Illinois, the California Museum of Science and Industry, SciTech in Aurora, IL, the Maryland Science Center, and the Computer Museum in Boston. The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL, got the highest marks.
Publication Name: IEEE Spectrum
Subject: Engineering and manufacturing industries
ISSN: 0018-9235
Year: 1995
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