News
Lincoln Laboratory in the News
The following articles were published in external publications and contain news about Laboratory efforts.
Watching and Waiting: The search for dangerous asteroids is about to begin in earnest
The Economist (December 2008)
On December 6th the University of Hawaii will activate a telescope designed specifically to look for dangerous asteroids. It is called PS1, a contraction of Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System, and it is the first of four such instruments that will be used to catalogue as many as possible of the 100,000 or so near-Earth asteroids that measure between 140 metres and a kilometre across....
They are able to do so because they are fitted with special digital cameras whose electronics were developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory.
AMTA Rides into Boston - Antenna Measurement Techniques Association Conference
Microwave Journal (November 2008)
The AMTA Conference was held in Boston, Massachusetts, from November 16 to 21, at the Park Plaza Hotel. The keynote speech by Dr. Eric D. Evans, Director of MIT Lincoln Laboratory, was on radar measurement activities at the Laboratory.
Snapshots of staff diversity efforts
MIT News (October 2008)
Imagine a workplace where staff value differences, are committed to building a balanced and diverse community, and are focused on making the culture inclusive and welcoming....
Early in his tenure, Director Eric Evans formed a laboratory diversity committee and charged that group with advancing the professional staff and establishing best practices. Bill Kindred, Lincoln Laboratory's diversity and inclusion officer, is hard at work in this arena.
Photonic Frontiers: Combining beams can boost total power
Laser Focus World (July 2008)
Separate laser beams can be combined to increase power by matching their phases to generate a single coherent beam … or by merging beams of different wavelengths. But getting it right is tricky...
Diode-laser arrays have long generated high powers by combining the outputs of many laser stripes. That works well for applications, like diode pumping, that do not require high beam quality. However, combining outputs in that way cannot increase the radiance beyond that of a single laser stripe. "The 'holy grail' of beam combining is to take a bunch of lasers and get a single Gaussian beam out," says T. Y. Fan of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory (Lexington, MA).
NASA selects MIT-led team to develop planet-searching satellite
Space Daily (June 2008)
A planet-searching satellite planned by scientists from MIT, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and NASA-Ames is one of six proposed spacecraft concepts that NASA has picked for further study as part of its Small Explorer (SMEX) satellite program. The planet-searching satellite would have the potential to discover hundreds of "super-Earth" planets, ranging from one to two times Earth's diameter, orbiting other stars....
The proposed satellite, called the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), would use a set of six wide-angle cameras with large, high-resolution electronic detectors (CCDs) being developed in cooperation with MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, to provide the first-ever spaceborne all-sky survey of transiting planets around the closest and brightest stars.
Googling alien life
Space Daily (March 2008)
MIT scientists are designing a satellite-based observatory that they say could for the first time provide a sensitive survey of the entire sky to search for planets outside the solar system that appear to cross in front of bright stars. The system could rapidly discover hundreds of planets similar to the Earth.
Schoolteachers get a "Lift" at MIT Lincoln Laboratory
MIT News (January 2008)
To encourage high-school students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math, Lincoln Laboratory hires local teachers every summer to work alongside seasoned scientists. This public, private, and education sector partnership is possible through the Leadership Initiatives for Teaching and Technology Program (LIFT2), and is sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Education and is funded through the No Child Left Behind Act.
Radar technology fights breast cancer
Science News (November 2007)
In 1990, Dr. Alan J. Fenn, a senior staff member at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, adapted the thermotherapy treatment from a system that used focused microwaves to detect missiles and block out interfering enemy signals.
"It's a very simple idea that can be applied to the treatment of many different cancers, including breast cancer," Fenn said.
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