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APL Research and Development
Volume 34, Number 3 (2018)

Research and development issues highlight APL's diverse contributions to national and global challenges. This issue begins with an article on the Tomahawk flight test program and the Fleet experimentation process. It describes how APL has assisted the Tomahawk Weapon System Program Office with using these capabilities to demonstrate operational use of new Tomahawk technology. The second article describes controlled laboratory test methods as well as test surrogates and devices APL has developed and used to simulate ballistic, blast, and underbody blast battlefield conditions. It offers examples of their use and describes how they contribute to understanding battlefield injury. The next article describes Dragonfly, APL's proposed mission to send a highly instrumented rotorcraft lander to Saturn's exotic moon Titan. NASA selected Dragonfly as one of two finalists for its next New Frontiers mission. The fourth article details the Special Sensor Ultraviolet Spectrographic Imager (SSUSI) program. This program has provided operationally useful information about the state of the upper atmosphere, the ionosphere, and the aurora to operators, forecasters, and scientists since 1990. The issue concludes with two special features: an update on the SEASONS conference, a biennial event that brings together members from the military, government, university, and contractor sectors who have an interest and stake in the space environment, and a summary of APL's Achievement Awards and most recent winners.

Tomahawk Fleet Experimentation, Systems Engineering, and Delivering Capability to the Fleet William R. Druce, Laura A. Grebe, and David W. Brewer

Warfighter Protection: From Benchtop to Battlefield Morgana M. Trexler, Alexis C. Wickwire, Quang T. Luong, Vanessa D. Alphonse, Kyle A. Ott, JiangYue Zhang, Jessica E. Dymond, Timothy P. Harrigan, and Catherine M. Carneal

Dragonfly: A Rotorcraft Lander Concept for Scientific Exploration at Titan Ralph D. Lorenz, Elizabeth P. Turtle, Jason W. Barnes, Melissa G. Trainer, Douglas S. Adams, Kenneth E. Hibbard, Colin Z. Sheldon, Kris Zacny, Patrick N. Peplowski, David J. Lawrence, Michael A. Ravine, Timothy G. McGee, Kristin S. Sotzen, Shannon M. MacKenzie, Jack W. Langelaan, Sven Schmitz, Lawrence S. Wolfarth, and Peter D. Bedini

SSUSI and SSUSI-Lite: Providing Space Situational Awareness and Support for Over 25 Years Larry J. Paxton, Robert K. Schaefer, Yongliang Zhang, Hyosub Kil, and John E. Hicks

SPECIAL FEATURE SEASONS (Space Environment Applications, Systems, and Operations for National Security) Conference Joseph M. Comberiate

SPECIAL FEATURE APL Achievement Awards and Prizes Erin M. Richardson