Multimedia Gallery
- Media Type: Illustration
How did the USS Alabama navigate?
From maintaining infrastructure, transporting goods, delivering services, or just meeting friends, people often use technology just as sophisticated as that used by pilots and soldiers. How does it work?
The NIST-7 provided a standard frequency rather than the time of day.
In a hyperbolic system such as LORAN, a receiver on an aircraft or ship picks up radio signals broadcast by one or more pairs of radio stations spaced hundreds of miles apart.
Increasingly accurate clocks and improved navigation methods have allowed navigators to calculate spacecraft positions with greater accuracy.
Inertial navigation systems determine the position, orientation, and velocity of a vehicle without using outside visual references.
The U.S. Exploring Expedition included a formidable group of botanists, naturalists, artists, taxidermists, and other scientists.
Portrait of John Harrison by James King, about 1766.
This illustration depicts the Juno spacecraft arriving at Jupiter in July 2016.
Kingfishers, Fiji (Todiramphus vitiensis)