Month: August 2017

US will bolster its military presence in South Korea with the deployment of 16 additional F-16 fighter jets and 200 troops

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The US is set to reinforce its military deployment in South Korea, as it plans to send 16 extra F-16 fighter jets and 200 military personnel to Kunsan Air Base, some 180km south of Seoul.

The four-month long deployment comes in the wake of heightened tensions in the area, prompted by a string of missile tests by North Korea.

South Korea and the US have been conducting joined military exercises in recent days, in a clear show of force to the Pyongyang regime.

The exercises called for two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers to fly over South Korean airspace.

The Rockwell B-1B is a heavy, long-range bomber, and one of the cornerstones of the US’ strategic bombing fleet, along with the B-2 Spirit and the B-52 Stratofortress.

The aircraft carries the largest payload in the entire US Air Force, and first saw action in 1998.

NASA will test its new planetary defence system on an asteroid zooming close to our planet in October

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NASA will get a chance to test its brand new planetary defence system in October, as 2012 TC4 will fly past Earth at a distance of just 4,200 miles. That is a very close call in astronomical terms indeed, though NASA have confirmed that the space rock will not hit our planet.

2012 TC4 is about 30mts across, and will become the test subject for a new detection and tracking network developed to assess the level of threat posed by rogue asteroids.

The next phase of NASA’s planetary defence system is the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, which should be ready by 2022.