14 DAY TRIAL // A Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) recently flew over Canadian airspace for the first time ever, collecting important scientific information about the portion of the Arctic located in northern Canada. The flight took a total of 21 hours, officials at NASA say.
The UAS was operated by a team of engineers and mission controllers from the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, in California, Northrop Grumman Corporation and a number of science organizations. Environmental data were collected using an Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar.
The UAVSAR instrument was aided in this effort by a high-resolution camera. Together, the two instruments were able to conduct visual observations of Arctic ice caps, and map the ground leading to and from these areas. The Global Hawk took off from the Edwards Air Force Base, in California.
“Flying high and long missions with advanced scientific equipment over the Arctic provides scientists with real data to better understand the changes that are affecting our world. The high-altitude, long-endurance NASA Global Hawk is one of the best tools researchers have to study weather phenomena,” says the general manager of unmanned systems at Northrop, Janis Pamiljans.