NASA Prepares 'Global Hawk' for Takeoff
NASA is gearing up Global Hawk, a remote-controlled airplane, for its
first scientific flights in coming weeks. With its capacity for
long-distance, high-altitude flights that can last over a day, Global
Hawk presents a new chapter in Earth science for NASA.
"It's a
very exciting time," said Chris Naftel, project manager for Global
Hawk. "This is the very first time that Global Hawk will be used for
science."
Northrop Grumman originally manufactured the two Global
Hawks now being retrofitted by NASA several years ago. These
remote-controlled airplanes
can fly for about 30 hours at altitudes up to 65,000 feet and were
designed initially as surveillance aircraft.
The maiden voyage
over the Pacific Ocean will be followed by several other jaunts into the
Arctic regions to learn more about Earth's atmosphere. One day, Global
Hawks might provide real-time data from the heart of hurricanes and
other major storms that are far too dangerous to risk sending in manned
aircraft.
Loading the payload
Over the
last couple of weeks, engineers, scientists, and aviation technicians at
the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Base in California
have been mounting equipment—from high-definition cameras
to ozone sensors—onto a Global Hawk.
The craft measures 44 feet
(13 meters) in length with a wingspan of 116 feet (35 meters). NASA
expects to operate the Global Hawk with payloads up to 2,000 pounds (907
kilograms).
The long wings carry the plane’s fuel, and the
bulbous nose is one of the craft's payload bays, which house the science
instruments.
After a full test run with a dozen scientific
instruments later this week or early next week, the first science flight
will commence by mid-April, Naftel said.
The science run will be
the first of four or five as part of the Global Hawk Pacific campaign,
or GloPac for short. The robotic aircraft's instruments will sample the
chemical composition of air in Earth's lower atmospheric layers as well
as observe clouds and the sea below.
The primary purpose of the
GloPac mission will be to check the accuracy of NASA’s Aura satellite,
which measures ozone, air quality, and climate data. The Global Hawk
will fly underneath the orbiting satellite and collect data
simultaneously to see if its data matches that of the satellite.
The
sky is the limit
Another major goal of the early runs
will be to figure out just what else is possible with the Global Hawk.
"We want to know, 'how do you use this platform for research?'" Naftel
said.
The ideas may come from beyond NASA: Dryden will soon have
live feeds from the Global Hawk, including high-definition ocean
snapshots that "should be really fascinating for the public to see,"
Naftel added.








