A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket carrying the second Global Positioning System III (GPS III) satellite for the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center lifted off from Space Launch Complex-37 on August 22 at 9:06 a.m. EDT, ULA announced on Thursday.

The GPS III system, built by Lockheed Martin, represents the next step in modernization of the worldwide navigation network with a new generation of advanced satellites offering improved accuracy, better anti-jam resiliency and a new signal for civil users. This mission marked the 29th and final flight of the Delta IV Medium rocket and the 73rd GPS launch by a ULA or heritage vehicle.

“Thank you to the team and our mission partners for the tremendous teamwork as we processed and launched this critical asset, providing advanced capabilities for warfighters, civil users, and humankind across the globe,” said Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Government and Commercial Programs. “We are proud of the strong legacy of the Delta IV Medium program, and look forward to the future with our purpose-built Vulcan Centaur,” Wentz added.

ULA’s next launch is Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, Orbital Flight Test, aboard an Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. ULA maintains a track record of 100% mission success with 135 successful launches.

About United Launch Alliance

With more than a century of combined heritage, ULA is the world’s most experienced and reliable launch service provider. ULA has successfully delivered more than 130 satellites to orbit that provide Earth observation capabilities, enable global communications, unlock the mysteries of our solar system, and support life-saving technology.

Lt. Gen. Eric Smith, who leads the U.S. Marine Corps’ Combat Development Command, said the service branch seeks more unmanned systems for surface, underwater and air operations, National Defense Magazine reported Wednesday.

USMC will work to boost the quantity of its new unmanned systems, seeking functions such as reconnaissance, radio communications and lethality, Smith said at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International’s Defense-Protection-Security Conference in Washington, D.C.

The commanding general noted that USMC needs smaller, lower-cost unmanned systems so that the service branch can focus on quantity. However, he also said the marines will need large, long-endurance drones for a portion of the service’s inventory.

The U.S. Navy’s Naval Information Warfare Center in Charleston, S.C., has created an augmented reality-based prototype technology to help warfighters detect and locate radio frequency emissions. NIWC Atlantic designed the Spectrum Hunter system with an AR display for military users to view information about RF waves and interact with the device through a hand gesture or a verbal command, the service branch said Wednesday.

A holographic user interface works by guiding device users toward the source of emission. Active-duty service members and some representatives from the government, academic and private sectors tested the exploratory platform in different scenarios as part of a naval technology exercise at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina last month.

“Our team is initially focusing on detecting handheld radios and will expand the scope later to detect cell phones and other devices,” Sinclair continued. “In the future, we plan to modify it to identify RF waves emitting from enemy forces,” said Jessica Sinclair, an information technology specialist at NIWC Atlantic.

Sinclair and her teammembers intend to share the concept outside their organization after they received a provisional patent.

Engineers and scientists from multiple U.S. Army groups have teamed to develop a cold spray technology for repairs on the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s turret gun mount. The team consisted of personnel from Army Research Laboratory, Ground Vehicle Systems Center, Armaments Center, Bradley Product Manager and Red River Army Depot, the service branch said Wednesday.

“This project demonstrated the ability to apply new manufacturing technologies to bring components back into service that would otherwise be scrapped during depot maintenance operations,” said Gehn Ferguson, ARL materials engineer at Army Combat Capabilities Development Command.

The cold spray process uses accelerated micron-sized particles to fill gaps on damaged surfaces. A repair using cold spray would cost only $1,000, compared to the $25,000 cost of a gun mount replacement.

ARL chose Bradley’s turret gun as a cold spray subject due to the laboratory’s experience with similar metals. Four to five more gun mounts will undergo cold spray repair over the next six months.  The Army’s Manufacturing Technology Program funded the project.