Recovery Efforts Continue Near Hawaii

What caused NASA's revolutionary solar UAV to suddenly break apart over the Pacific Ocean Thursday?

That's a question NASA hopes will be answered by a new team of investigators who will spend the next week on Kaui in the Hawaiian Islands.

Helios was flying at 3,000 MSL, making about 21 mph, when it suddenly delaminated in flight. The remote-piloted vehicle tumbled in pieces into the ocean below.

"We have helicopters out there looking," Jenny Baer-Reidhart, a spokeswoman for the Dryden Flight Center, said on Kauai Friday. "We think right now they're still in the area where it splashed down" west of Kauai, near Niihau.

Helios was no ordinary UAV. The $15 million, solar-powered, propeller-driven vehicle set an altitude record two years ago for a non-rocket powered aircraft. Helios was testing a new, long-range fuel cell when it broke apart and fluttered into the Pacific Thursday.

Investigators hope to find out what happened by questioning a videographer and three crew members aboard a chase helicopter. "They were in the area when it happened," Ms. Baer-Reidhart said, but officials don't yet know what they saw or whether the videographer captured the mishap on tape. The week-long investigation into the loss of Helios will be led by Thomas Knoll, who works at the Langley Research Center in Hampton (VA).

FMI: www.dfrc.nasa.gov