St. Lawrence Energy, a reusable energy company, announced today that it has entered into a joint solar energy technology development agreement with NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Through the agreement, both St. Lawrence and NASA will jointly cooperate in developing the next generation, more efficient, solar energy technologies.

St. Lawrence has engaged 3Soft, Inc. of South Korea in partnership for product adaptation and marketing to major markets in Asia. 3Soft’s capability in manufacturing and implementation will allow St. Lawrence to leverage off 3Soft successes with its manufacturing sophistication. 3Soft is expected to continue with its participation in St. Lawrence’s solar venture and to shorten time to market.

St. Lawrence intends in conjunction with NASA’s research efforts, to take advantage of developing competitive solar technologies, and of the solar market growth of 48% annually through 2013, reaching 23 GW (GigaWatts), from 4.9 GW in 2008. The solar market is expected to reach $100.4 billion in 2013, up from $33.4 billion in 2008.

Alion Science and Technology, an employee-owned technology solutions provider, has been awarded a Combat Air Forces (CAF) Distributed Mission Operations (DMO) task order for $8.1 million to support the Air Combat Command (ACC) in its mission of sustaining global implementation of national security strategy.

Alion will analyze modeling and simulation (M&S) technologies and M&S-based training approaches. These analyses will be used by ACC to develop DMO enabling concepts and implementation plans that will allow the command to fulfill its readiness training responsibilities. By identifying M&S technologies that can create an optimum mix of live flying and simulator-based training experiences, ACC can establish the foundation for creating hybrid training ranges in which live (real) systems can be integrated with virtual (simulated) and constructive (computer-modeled) ones. The work also includes research in the use of M&S technologies to create a competency-based training strategy that can be used within Live-Virtual-Constructive (LVC) battle spaces. Another important aspect is supporting ACC in establishing M&S-oriented cross domain security solutions for the DMO program.

“Alion’s M&S research and analyses will provide a path to migrate existing and emerging LVC technologies into the requirements of ACC’s enabling concepts and plans,” said Dick Brooks, Alion Senior Vice President and Manager of the Distributed Simulation Group. “This will include the development of concepts, strategies and recommendations to improve readiness training and effectively document this information so that the M&S requirements are efficiently transmitted to the commands acquisition agents.”

The period of performance runs through September 29, 2011.

Air Combat Command operates fighter, bomber, reconnaissance, battle-management and electronic-combat aircraft. It also provides command, control, communications and intelligence systems and conducts global information operations.

The world’s first commercial aviation test flight powered by a sustainable second-generation biofuel this past week in New Zealand.  The Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 will have one of its four Rolls-Royce RB211 engines powered by a biofuel blend derived from a second-generation biofuel plant – Jatropha Curcas.

The Air New Zealand test flight is a joint initiative with partners Boeing, Rolls-Royce and Honeywell’s UOP in commercial aviation’s drive for more sustainable air travel for future generations. Captain Morgan will detail the various stages of the flight and the tests that will be undertaken to check the performance of the biofuel blend under a variety of operating conditions.

Air New Zealand and its partners have been non-negotiable about the three criteria any environmentally sustainable fuel must meet for the test flight program. These are social, technical and commercial.