23 Special Air Service Regiment (Reserve)

23 Special Air Service Regiment (Reserve) (23 SAS(R)) is a regiment of the British Army Reserve. Together with 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve) (21 SAS(R)), it forms the Special Air Service (Reserve) (SAS(R)) unlike the regular SAS Regiment it accepts members of the general population without prior military service.

History

The unit was founded in 1959, as an additional regiment of the Territorial Army, and was created from the former Reserve Reconnaissance Unit, itself descended from the body of the organisation known as Military Intelligence 9. The regiment's first commander was H. S. Gillies, at the time a lieutenant colonel. Anthony Hunter-Choat OBE was the commanding officer of the regiment from 1977 to 1983. Sebastian Morley, at that time a major, was for a period commander of D squadron until his resignation sometime during 2008.

21st century

The reservists were at some time involved directly in the training the Afghan National Police, during the most recent Afghan war, following a review of their unit's operational capability they were withdrawn from front line operations and the task handed over to a "regular" infantry unit. The report found that the TA SAS lacked a clearly defined role, and also stated that the reservists lacked the military capability and skillset to serve alongside the regular special forces

Scandinavian Airlines

Scandinavian Airlines or SAS, previously Scandinavian Airlines System, with the legal name Scandinavian Airlines System Denmark-Norway-Sweden, is the flag carrier of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and the largest airline in Scandinavia.

Part of the Scandinavian Airlines System Aktiebolag and headquartered at the SAS Frösundavik Office Building in Solna, Sweden, the airline operates 182 aircraft to 90 destinations. The airline's main hub is at Copenhagen-Kastrup Airport, with connections to over 50 cities in Europe. Stockholm-Arlanda Airport (with more than 30 European connections) and Oslo Airport, Gardermoen are the other major hubs. Minor hubs also exist at Bergen Airport, Flesland, Gothenburg-Landvetter Airport, Stavanger Airport, Sola and Trondheim Airport, Værnes.

In 2012, SAS carried 25.9 million passengers, achieving revenues of SEK 36 billion. This makes it the ninth-largest airline in Europe. The SAS fleet consists of Airbus A319, A320, A321, A330 and A340, Boeing 737 Next Generation, and Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft. In addition, SAS also wetleases ATR 72 and Saab 2000.

Small Astronomy Satellite 2

The Small Astronomy Satellite 2, also known also as SAS-2, SAS B or Explorer 48, was a NASA gamma ray telescope. It was launched on 15 November 1972 into the low Earth orbit with a periapsis of 443 km and an apoapsis of 632 km. It completed its observations on 8 June 1973.

SAS 2 was the second in the series of small spacecraft designed to extend the astronomical studies in the X-ray, gamma-ray, ultraviolet, visible, and infrared regions. The primary objective of the SAS-B was to measure the spatial and energy distribution of primary galactic and extragalactic gamma radiation which energies between 20 and 300 MeV. The instrumentation consisted principally of a guard scintillation detector, an upper and a lower spark chamber, and a charged particle telescope.

SAS-2 was launched from the San Marco platform off the coast of Kenya, Africa, into a nearly equatorial orbit. The orbiting spacecraft was in the shape of a cylinder approximately 59 cm in diameter and 135 cm in length. Four solar paddles were used to recharge the 6 amp-h nickel-cadmium battery and provide power to the spacecraft and telescope experiment. The spacecraft was spin stabilized, and a magnetically torqued commandable control system was used to point the spin axis of the spacecraft to any position in space within approximately 1 degree. The experiment axis lay along this axis allowing the telescope to look at any selected region of the sky with its plus or minus 30 degree acceptance aperture. The nominal spin rate was 1/12 rpm. Data were taken at 1000 bit/s and could be recorded on an onboard tape recorder and simultaneously transmitted in real time. The recorded data were transmitted once per orbit. This required approximately 5 minutes.

USA (disambiguation)

USA or U.S.A. usually refers to the United States of America, a country in North America.

USA or U.S.A. may also refer to:

Places

Business

Universities

Other uses

American Revolution

The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783 during which colonists in the Thirteen American Colonies rejected the British monarchy and aristocracy, overthrew the authority of Great Britain, and founded the United States of America.

Starting in 1765, members of American colonial society rejected the authority of the British Parliament to tax them without colonial representatives in the government. During the following decade, protests by colonists—known as Patriots—continued to escalate, as in the Boston Tea Party in 1773 during which patriots destroyed a consignment of taxed tea from the Parliament-controlled and favored East India Company. The British responded by imposing punitive laws—the Coercive Acts—on Massachusetts in 1774, following which Patriots in the other colonies rallied behind Massachusetts. In late 1774 the Patriots set up their own alternative government to better coordinate their resistance efforts against Great Britain, while other colonists, known as Loyalists, preferred to remain aligned to the British Crown.

USA-229

USA-229, known before launch as NRO Launch 34 (NROL-34), is a pair of American signals intelligence satellites which were launched in 2011. They are operated by the United States National Reconnaissance Office.

Both satellites were deployed by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 411 carrier rocket, which launched from Space Launch Complex 3E at the Vandenberg Air Force Base. The launch occurred at 04:24 UTC on 15 April 2011. The rocket placed the satellites into a low Earth orbit. By 04:29 UTC, official updates on the status of the spacecraft had been discontinued.

Whilst details of the satellites and their missions are officially classified, amateur observers have identified that the Atlas V deployed two satellites, one of which has officially been catalogued as debris. The two spacecraft have been identified as being a pair of third or fourth generation Naval Ocean Surveillance System satellites. Amateur observations have located the spacecraft in an orbit with a perigee of 1,025 kilometres (637 mi) and an apogee of 1,207 kilometres (750 mi), inclined at 64.4 degrees to the plane of the equator. Current generation NOSS satellites are always launched and operated in pairs, and are used to locate and track ships from the radio transmissions that they emit.