Robert McCoy, director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, was driving to the movie theater in Fairbanks on a Saturday in mid-February when his cellphone showed an incoming call. It was from someone with the Department of Defense’s Alaskan Command, a person he knows well. The caller had a request: Could the Geophysical Institute […]
An experiment to bounce a radio signal off an asteroid on Dec. 27 will serve as a test for probing a larger asteroid that in 2029 will pass closer to Earth than the many geostationary satellites that orbit our planet. The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program research site in Gakona will transmit radio signals to asteroid […]
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON – Something not often thought about is how buildings are heated on military installations in Alaska – that is, until the system breaks. At King Salmon Air Force Station, a central steam plant has kept the heat running since the Cold War. But, as the years have gone on, the job of […]
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska — Besides her distinctively mottled Canadian Disruptive Pattern uniform and a habit of pronouncing lieutenant as “left-tenant,” there is nothing differentiating Royal Canadian Air Force Capt. Elyse O’Brien, 176th Air Defense Squadron air battle manager, from her fellow “Top Rock” squadron members. While monitoring her radar-display scope directing F-22 Raptor fighters, O’Brien […]