omega tau science & engineering podcast

During my trip to the US I also visited the Basic Plasma Science Facility at the UCLA in Los Angeles. I talked with the two professors who run the facility, Walter Gekelman and Troy Carter. We discuss the basics of plasma, the research questions of plasma physics and some of the experimental challenges. I also get (and report on) a tour through the facility, which was very impressive, mainly because the whole system was built by the team around Walter and Troy!

In this episode we look back at (aspects of) the North American Air Defense system in the cold war. In particular, we look at the distant early warning line(s), the F-106 interceptor and the SAGE computer system. For DEW, we talk with Mike Milinkovich and Brian Jeffrey who have both worked on the DEW line; Brian also maintains a great website on DEW. For the F-106, we talk with Richard Embry who has flown the interceptor. And for SAGE, we speak with Bernd Ulmann, who has written a very detailed book on SAGE's underlying AN/FSQ-7 computer system. Bernd has also been a previous guest on Episode 159 on analog computers.

Dr. Douglas Hofmann works as a scientist in the Metallurgy Lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I visited Doug during my US trip earlier this year, and we chatted about metallic glass. In particular, we discussed its properties, how to create it in bulk, how to test its properties, as well as how and why it is interesting for use in space.

Als Auftakt zu einer (hoffentlich ausführlichen :-)) Serie von Episoden zur Energieerzeugung und -versorgung geht es heute um Stromnetze im Allgemeinen. Unser Gast ist Veit Hagenmeyer, Professor am KIT und ehemaliger Kraftwerksleiter. Wir sprechen über Spannungslevel im Netz, Regelung mittels der Netzfrequenz, die Regelbarkeit verschiedener Kraftwerkstypen sowie die Herausforderungen die sich für das Netz aus der zunehmenden Verbreitung regenerativer Energiequellen ergeben.

During my visit to DLR's Earth Observation Center earlier this year I also talked to Dana Floricioiu about her work in glaciology. We discuss a couple of her recent publications, and then focus on her trip to the Darwin Glacier in Antarctica. Together with a team of fellow scientists, she camped on the glacier for three weeks to conduct various in-situ experiments. We discussed the work, but also life on the glacier.

Ich war am Earth Observation Center des DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen zu Besuch und habe dort zwei Gespräche geführt. Zunächst ging es mit mit Michael Eineder vom Institut für Methodik der Fernerkundung um Radarsatelliten und deren Einsatz für die Erdbeobachtung. Wir sprechen über das Funktionsprinzip von satellitengestützten SAR-Radar und betrachten außerdem die beiden Missionen TerraSAR-X und TanDEM-X. Im zweiten Teil spreche ich mit Stephan Kiemle vom Deutsches Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum über Satellitendatenarchivierung.

The increasing complexity of software requires increasingly sophisticated means of ensuring its correctness -- "just" testing is not necessarily good enough, depending on the domain in which the software is used. Formal specification, verification and proof is a field with a long tradition in computer science that is gaining more (practical) relevance these days; and in this episode, we cover the basics. Our guest is Benjamin Pierce, professor of computer science at UPenn. We discuss the nature of (good) specifications, how verification and proof is different from testing, and where and how these techniques are successfully used today.

This is the last episode recorded during my visit to ESA's ESTEC last fall. I get a tour of the Test Centre with the head of the section, Mark Wagner. We discuss the various test stands and facilities, including the thermal vacuum facility, the large space simulator, the thermal vacuum chamber, the vibration facilities, electromagnetic testing and acoustic testing.

During my visit to ESA's ESTEC last fall, I talked to Jose Gonzalez del Amo, who is the head of the Electric Propulsion Lab. We discussed the basics of electric propulsion, the pros and cons compared to chemical engines, different engine styles and their use cases, as well as the work ESA performs in the lab.

Im Dezember habe ich das Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre des DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen besucht. Dort habe ich mit dem Physiker Helmut Ziereis und Katrin Witte vom Flugbetrieb unterhalten. Neben Forschungsfragen und -vorgehen der flugzeuggestützten Atmosphärenphysik haben wir uns insbesondere über das Forschungsflugzeug HALO unterhalten.