14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with the American space agency announce that one of their Global Hawk unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) has recently completed a series of instrument checks, before the beginning of the Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment (ATTREX) over the western Pacific Ocean, later this month.
The research effort is meant to analyze the moisture levels and chemical composition of the stratosphere – a layer of the upper atmosphere – at this location. The NASA Global Hawk 872 drone will take part in the study, by flying a suite of instruments high over Pacific waters.
On December 20, 2013, the UAS successfully completed a checkout flight of the science instruments that it will carry when ATTREX begins in Guam in late January. The drone flew for more than six hours in restricted airspace to validate instruments including the Hawkeye cloud particle probe.
Global Hawk 872 is the first drone of its kind to have scientific instruments encased in pods hung on wing-mounted pylons. Usually, NASA engineers place instruments inside the body of the aircraft, in order to improve its flight performances.