NASA Partnering With NOAA On High Altitude Research Tool
NASA and Northrop
Grumman Corporation have unveiled the first Global Hawk unmanned
aircraft system to be used for environmental science research,
heralding a new application for the world’s first fully
autonomous high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft. The debut took
place Thursday at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards,
Calif.
NASA and Northrop Grumman are returning NASA’s two Global
Hawk aircraft to flight this year under a Space Act Agreement
signed in May 2008. NASA plans to use the aircraft for missions to
support its Science Mission Directorate and the Earth science
community that require high-altitude, long-distance airborne
capability.
"Today marks the debut of NASA’s newest airborne science
capability," said Kevin L. Petersen, director of Dryden. "These
Global Hawks represent the first non-military use of this
remarkable robotic aircraft system. NASA’s partnership with
Northrop Grumman has made this possible."
The U.S. Air Force transferred the Global Hawks to NASA in
December 2007. They are among the first seven built in the original
Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program, which the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency sponsored. Northrop
Grumman will share in the use of the aircraft to conduct its own
flight demonstrations for expanded markets, missions and airborne
capabilities, including integration of autonomous aircraft systems
into the national airspace.
Global Hawk can fly at altitudes up to 65,000 feet for more than
31 hours at a time. To date, Global Hawks have flown more than
28,000 hours.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA,
also is partnering with NASA to develop this new airborne research
tool. NOAA is participating in the project management and piloting
of the NASA Global Hawks and the development of scientific
instruments and future Earth science research campaigns.
"These Global Hawks will provide superb new measurement
possibilities for our climate science and applications programs,"
said Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division in
Washington. "This collaboration is a model for NASA's wide-ranging
Earth-observation activities to advance our understanding of Earth
as an integrated system, which are critical to developing responses
to environmental change here and around the world."
NASA's initial use of the aircraft to support Earth science will
be the Global Hawk Pacific 2009 program. This campaign will consist
of six long-duration missions over the Pacific and Arctic regions
in the late spring and early summer of 2009. Twelve scientific
instruments integrated into one of the NASA Global Hawk aircraft
will collect atmospheric data while flying high through Earth's
atmosphere in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.
Global Hawk has many potential applications for the advancement
of science, improvement of hurricane monitoring techniques,
development of disaster support capabilities, and development of
advanced autonomous aircraft system technologies. For example,
Global Hawks were used to help monitor wildfires in Southern
California in 2007 and 2008.