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Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

China Will Attempt to Land Rover on Mars in Coming Days

Friday, May 14, 2021

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats National Preparedness

Comments: 0

An exhibition in Beijing on Friday depicted Chinese rovers on Mars. PHOTO: NG HAN GUAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

HONG KONG—China will attempt to land a rover on Mars in the coming days, a test of how far the country’s ambitious space program has developed.

The country’s first Mars exploratory mission Tianwen-1 will attempt the landing on the red planet sometime between Saturday and Wednesday, the China National Space Administration said in a short statement late Friday. Its target landing site is Mars’s Utopia Planitia plain, the agency said.

China plans for the 240-kilogram (529-pound) Zhurong rover—named after the god of fire in ancient Chinese mythology—to explore the planet for about 90 Martian days. Known as sols, days on Mars are about 39 minutes longer than days on Earth.

If it succeeds, it will mark a significant milestone in China’s increasingly bold space program, which has made strides this year. The nation sent a core component of its new space station into orbit last month, and plans a series of other launches in coming months to target a 2022 operational date.

Landing on Mars carries considerable difficulties, and several nations have tried and failed. The only space agency that has successfully landed and operated on Mars is the U.S.’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The U.S. has successfully operated five rovers on Mars, including Perseverance, which landed in February.

The Soviet Union’s Mars 3 lander touched down on the planet in 1971 but failed shortly after.

Mars’s thin atmosphere makes descent trickier, while minutes-long communication lags means the lander, which carries the rover, is essentially on an automated track once the attempt begins.

Tianwen-1’s Mars entry, descent and landing will take around nine minutes, during which the Chinese explorer’s speed will be reduced from 4.9 kilometers per second (10,961 miles per hour) to zero, state-run Global Times reported, citing the probe’s contractor, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

The craft will use parachutes, retrorockets and its blunt shape to reduce its speed and touch down on the planet, the CNSA has said.

The CNSA said Friday that the mission had already obtained a large amount of scientific data since entering Mars’s orbit in February.

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-will-attempt-to-land-rover-on-mars-in-coming-days-11620999668

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