From watching whales to flying through volcanoes, remote-controlled aircraft are becoming a popular research tool. Now NASA has some lessons to share with researchers, pilots and hobbyists who launch unmanned vehicles into the sky.
"Crash Course," a new ebook, details remotely piloted research vehicle and unmanned aircraft system mishaps and their causes, consequences, resultant corrective actions, and lessons learned, according to a NASA statement. Unsurprisingly, most of these "undesired outcomes" come from a long chain of equipment malfunctions and/or human errors, rather than a single spectacular failure.
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