Ahmed Helal, The University of Texas at Austin

If you walk across the open yard in front of the Physics, Math and Astronomy building at the University of Texas at Austin, you’ll see a 17-story tower and a huge L-shaped building. What you won’t see is what’s underneath you. Two floors below ground, behind heavy double doors stamped with a logo that most students have never noticed, sits one of the most powerful lasers in the United States.

I was the lead laser scientist on the Texas Petawatt, or TPW as we called it, from 2020 to 2024. Texas Petawatt, which is currently closed due to funding cuts, was a government-funded research center where scientists from across the country applied for time to use specialized equipment. It was part of LaserNetUS, a Department of Energy network of high-power laser labs.

This type of laser takes a tiny pulse of light, stretches it out so it doesn’t blast optics to pieces, and amplifies it until, for a brief instant, it carries more power than the entire U.S. electrical grid. Then it compresses the pulse back to a trillionth of a second to create a star in a vacuum chamber.

On a typical shot day, the target might be a piece of metal foil thinner than a human hair, a jet of gas or a tiny plastic pellet – each designed to answer a different scientific question.

Scientists from across the country applied for time on TPW to study everything from the physics of stellar interiors and fusion energy to new approaches for cancer treatment.

Most people hear about petawatt lasers and picture something out of a movie. A “shot day” is actually hours of quiet, repetitive work followed by about 10 seconds where nobody breathes.

I now work as a research scientist at the University of Texas-Austin, studying the interaction of lasers with different materials, but a typical shot day during my time running TPW would look like this:

7 a.m.

I arrive two hours before the first scheduled shot. I put on my gown, boots and hairnet and step into the cold clean room. The laser doesn’t just turn on. You coax it awake.

I start with the oscillator, a small box that generates the first seed of light. I write down the parameters that define how the laser will behave during the shot: energy, center frequency, vacuum pressure in the tubes, cooling water level and flow. At this stage, they are fixed regardless of the experiment. The laser must perform the same way every time before the science can begin. Then I fire up the pump laser that will amplify this tiny pulse from nanojoules to about half a joule.

The system needs at least 30 minutes to stabilize. During that time, I check alignment through every pinhole and every camera along the beam path. A slight misalignment at this stage isn’t just a problem; it can be catastrophic – a mispointed beam at full power can burn through optics that take months to source and replace, setting the entire laser back.

Building the beam

Once the system is warmed up, I send the beam into the first amplifier: a glass rod surrounded by bright flash lamps that pump light into the glass – like charging a battery. With each pass, the beam absorbs energy from the glass and grows stronger. Then the beam travels into a larger rod, where it makes four passes, picking up more energy each time until it reaches about 12 joules, roughly the energy of a ball thrown hard across a room.

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This process alone takes the better part of an hour, most of it spent checking and confirming alignment and energy at each stage.

I expand the beam and send it through the final stage: the disk amplifiers. Two amplifiers, each consisting of two massive 30-centimeter glass disks, are pumped by a huge bank of flash lamps powered by capacitor banks – essentially giant batteries that store electrical energy and release it in a sudden burst. They are so large that they have their own room on a separate floor. Fast optical shutters between each stage act as gates, controlling exactly when and where the beam travels.

The shot

When the experimental team confirms that the target is in position, it asks me to prepare for a system shot. I run through the long checklist. We test the shutters and switch to system shot mode. Every monitor in the facility changes to display the same message – “System Shot Mode” – and flashes red.

I lean into the microphone at the control desk, a vintage piece that looks like it belongs in a World War II radio room, and announce that we’re going into a system shot. Then I open the compressor beam dump: a heavy glass plate that normally blocks the beam from reaching the target. It takes about two minutes to move.

“Sweeping, sweeping for a system shot.”

The announcement goes out over speakers across the facility. I grab a small interlock key, put on my laser safety goggles and head downstairs. I walk a specific pattern through every room, checking that nobody is still inside. As I go, I lock each door with the key. If anyone opens one of those doors after I’ve locked them, the entire shot sequence aborts.

Back in the control room, I sit down and start charging the capacitor banks. At this point, there’s no going back except for an emergency shutdown, and that means losing the shot and waiting for everything to cool down.

“Charging.”

The room goes silent. Everyone’s eyes are on the monitors. Nobody talks.

I typically will share a glance with the researcher whose project the shot is for – today it’s Joe, a visiting scientist from Los Alamos National Lab, who designed the target we’re about to vaporize. He’s gripping his coffee cup like it owes him money. I turn back to the console.

“Charge complete. Firing system shot in three, two, one. Fire.”

I press the button. A loud thud rolls through the building as all that stored energy dumps into the beam. The monitors freeze, capturing everything at the moment of the shot: beam profiles, spectra, diagnostics – these metrics provide a full picture of exactly how the laser performed and whether the shot was clean. Downstairs, in the vacuum chamber, a spot smaller than a human hair just reached temperatures measured in millions of degrees.

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I lean back in my chair and start recording laser parameters as everyone exhales. A radiation safety officer heads down first to check readings around the target chamber before anyone else can enter. The experimental team follows to collect data.

Sometimes it all works perfectly. Sometimes a shutter fails to open and you lose the shot.

For example, one afternoon in 2023, we’d spent three hours preparing for a high-priority shot. Target aligned. Capacitors charged. I pressed the button and heard nothing. A shutter had failed somewhere in the chain. The monitors stayed frozen, showing black. Nobody said anything. I wrote SHOT FAILED in the logbook and started the hourlong cooldown sequence. That’s the part they don’t show in movies: sitting in silence, waiting to try again. We got the shot four hours later.

This anticipation is all part of the job: hours of patience for 10 seconds you never quite get used to. Everything happens underneath a campus where thousands of people walk above, unaware that for a fraction of a second, a tiny point of matter hotter than the surface of the Sun just existed below their feet.

Ahmed Helal, Research Scientist, The University of Texas at Austin

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Blue Origin has confirmed the launch window for the third mission of its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket, marking another step forward in the company’s expanding role in commercial spaceflight.

New Glenn’s Third Mission

Launch Details and Timeline

The mission is scheduled to lift off no earlier than Sunday, April 19, 2026, from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The two-hour launch window opens at 6:45 a.m. EDT (10:45 UTC) and closes at 8:45 a.m. EDT (12:45 UTC).

Viewers can follow the mission through a live webcast hosted by Blue Origin, beginning approximately 30 minutes before liftoff.

Mission Payload: Expanding Space-Based Connectivity

At the heart of the mission is the deployment of the BlueBird 7 satellite, developed by AST SpaceMobile. The satellite is designed to enhance a growing direct-to-smartphone broadband network, an emerging technology aimed at delivering connectivity to standard mobile devices without the need for ground-based towers.

BlueBird 7 will contribute to expanding network capacity and is expected to support initial service rollout plans targeted for 2026. The broader initiative reflects a significant shift in how satellite infrastructure could complement terrestrial telecom systems, particularly in underserved or remote regions.

Reusability Milestone: Booster Returns Again

A key feature of this mission is the planned reuse of New Glenn’s first-stage booster, “Never Tell Me The Odds.” The booster previously demonstrated a successful launch and landing during the rocket’s second mission in November, underscoring Blue Origin’s commitment to reusable rocket technology—a cornerstone of cost reduction and operational efficiency in modern spaceflight.

If successful, this mission will further validate the reliability of the New Glenn system and strengthen its competitiveness in a market increasingly shaped by reusable launch vehicles.

Industry Context: Competing in a Rapidly Evolving Market

The New Glenn program represents Blue Origin’s answer to heavy-lift launch demands, positioning the company alongside major players such as SpaceX. As satellite constellations grow in scale and ambition, reliable and cost-effective launch services have become a critical component of the global space economy.

The inclusion of commercial payloads like BlueBird 7 highlights the increasing collaboration between aerospace firms and telecommunications providers, signaling a future where space-based infrastructure plays a central role in everyday connectivity.

Looking Ahead

With its third mission, New Glenn continues to build momentum as a next-generation launch platform. The combination of reusable hardware, commercial partnerships, and advanced payload capabilities places this launch among the most closely watched developments in the 2026 spaceflight calendar.

For ongoing updates, mission tracking, and live coverage, audiences can follow Blue Origin across its digital platforms or visit its official website.

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Source

Blue Origin Official Announcement – New Glenn Third Mission

Related External Links

• Learn More About Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket
• AST SpaceMobile – Space-Based Cellular Broadband Network
• Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Information
• NASA Overview of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Operations

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Adeel Khalid, Kennesaw State University

A combination of infrared imaging, thermal imaging and color cameras on an uncrewed drone, along with an AI system to interpret the data, can help emergency responders and search-and-rescue teams locate, identify and track people who have gone missing in the wilderness. The experimental system helps responders pinpoint where a missing person is and determine whether they are hurt or even alive.

People who get lost or hurt while exploring nature can become stranded for days. Rescue teams often use drones to look for the person or signs of their whereabouts. The small drone my colleagues and I built at my lab at Kennesaw State University flies autonomously using a grid search pattern. It sends live video and images to a ground station operated by the rescue team.

When the AI system finds a person, it analyzes images to determine whether the individual is upright or lying on the ground. It segments parts of the person’s body, identifying the person’s head and the body’s position. It then zeroes in on the forehead. It extracts forehead temperature readings, pixel by pixel, from the imaging data to estimate forehead temperature. We have two papers detailing these findings accepted for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Aviation Forum 2026 conference.

https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/1381/8e55acef0075dfeebe10e7de53e7f0cbf5223831/site/index.html

Our AI model then assesses whether the person is conscious or unconscious and identifies abnormal temperatures that could indicate heat stress, hypothermia or other physical complications, or death – all vital information for a search-and-rescue team.

In field trials we have conducted, the system has provided consistent temperature readings of the heads of volunteers from our research team who have walked out into a variety of environments, under different conditions.

https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/1380/7fe5f8cf79d68c8907da060b27accb7b2051d60c/site/index.html

Why it matters

It is critical to get accurate and timely information on the whereabouts of a missing person. The likelihood that the person will survive decreases steeply as time passes.

An AI-enhanced drone can make search-and-rescue operations significantly more efficient than sending teams of people out into the environment to search on foot, especially in poor weather conditions or under thick foliage. Rescuers who know whether a person is conscious or unconscious can also better gear up for what they need to do to retrieve the person and administer aid. Our technology could save lives.

What other research is being done

Search-and-rescue personnel use various kinds of drones, but the machines often lack the ability to positively identify humans, especially under thick foliage, in bad weather or when the person is lying down or unconscious. The AI-based technology we have developed overcomes those challenges.

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Better sensors that are very lightweight, that can function at night or in rain, and can see more clearly through thick foliage could further improve our drone and drones used by others. Researchers are devising AI-powered sound recognition for detecting screams for help, advanced thermal imaging for better nighttime vision and autonomous drones that could act as first responders.

Also under development are drones that can carry heavy payloads, such as flotation devices, fly for up to 14 hours or perform real-time mapping of the ground below.

What’s next

One of our next steps is to have multiple drones fly together and autonomously coordinate search-and-rescue operations among themselves. This will allow the technology to cover a much larger area, perhaps hundreds of square miles.

We are also designing a large drone that can carry up to 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of payload and stay aloft for an hour.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Adeel Khalid, Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Kennesaw State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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