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36-520: AeroVironment initiated its development of full-scale solar-powered aircraft with the Gossamer Penguin and Solar Challenger vehicles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, following the pioneering work of Robert Boucher , who built the first solar-powered flying models in 1974. As part of the ERAST program, AeroVironment built four generations of long endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) under

72-527: A 12-hour flight from NASA Dryden . This and subsequent records claimed by NASA for Pathfinder remain unofficial, as they were not validated by the FAI , the internationally recognized aviation world record sanctioning body. The National Aeronautic Association presented the NASA-industry ERAST team with an award for one of the "10 Most Memorable Record Flights" of 1995. After further modifications,

108-792: A 28–cell, NiCad battery pack instead of a solar panel. The test pilot for these flights was MacCready's 13-year-old son Marshall, who weighed 80 lb (36 kg). The official pilot for the project was Janice Brown, a charter pilot with commercial, instrument, and glider ratings who weighed slightly less than 100 lb (45 kg). She flew the Penguin approximately 40 times before a 1.95-mile (3.14 km) public demonstration flight at NASA 's Dryden Flight Research Center on August 7, 1980. Data from MacCready, Lissaman, Morgan, and Burke 1983 General characteristics Related development Dryden Flight Research Center The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center ( AFRC )

144-766: A DC-8 Flying Laboratory, a Gulfstream C-20A UAVSAR and ER-2 High Altitude Platform. As of 2023, Bradley Flick is the center's director. Established as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Muroc Flight Test Unit (1946), the center was subsequently known as the NACA High-Speed Flight Research Station (1949), the NACA High-Speed Flight Station (1954), the NASA High-Speed Flight Station (1958) and

180-406: A backup battery system that can provide power for between two and five hours to allow limited-duration flight after dark. Pathfinder flies at an airspeed of only 15 miles per hour (24 km/h) to 25 miles per hour (40 km/h). Pitch control is maintained by the use of tiny elevators on the trailing edge of the wing Turn and yaw control is accomplished by slowing down or speeding up the motors on

216-536: A crewed, powered aircraft ( North American X-15 ), the first pure digital fly-by-wire aircraft (F-8 DFBW), and many others. AFRC operates a second site next to Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, known as Building 703, once the former Rockwell International / North American Aviation production facility. There, AFRC houses and operates several of NASA's Science Mission Directorate aircraft including SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy) ,

252-613: A former test pilot at the center and the first human being to walk on the Moon. AFRC was the home of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified Boeing 747 designed to carry a Space Shuttle orbiter back to Kennedy Space Center if one landed at Edwards. The center long operated the oldest B-52 Stratofortress bomber, a B-52B (dubbed Balls 8 after its tail number, 008) that had been converted to drop test aircraft. 008 dropped many supersonic test vehicles, from

288-406: A reusable launch vehicle's engine plume would affect the aerodynamics of its lifting-body shape at specific altitudes and speeds reaching approximately 340 m/s (760 mph). The interaction of the aerodynamic flow with the engine plume could create drag; design refinements look to minimize that interaction. The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle or LLRV was an Apollo Project era program to build

324-465: A subsidiary of AeroVironment , in a test of using the aircraft as a broadcast platform. Skytower, in partnership with NASA and the Japan Ministry of Telecommunications , tested the concept of an " atmospheric satellite " by successfully using the aircraft to transmit both an HDTV signal as well as an IMT-2000 wireless communications signal from 65,000 feet (20,000 m), giving the aircraft

360-541: A unique landscape well suited for flight research: dry conditions, few rainy days per year, and large, flat, open spaces in which emergency landings can be performed. At times, the bed can host a runway length of over 40,000 feet. It is home to a compass rose some 2,000 feet across, in which aircraft can land into the wind in any direction. NASA's predecessor, the NACA, operated the Douglas Skyrocket. A successor to

396-485: A wing span of 98.4 feet (30.0 m). Two underwing pods contain the landing gear, batteries, triple-redundant instrumentation system, and dual-redundant flight control computers. By the time the aircraft was adopted into the ERAST project in late 1993, solar cells were being added, eventually covering the entire upper surface of the wing. The solar arrays provide power for the aircraft's electric motors, avionics, communications and other electronic systems. Pathfinder also had

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432-484: Is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA . Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical research. AFRC operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is known for many aviation firsts, including supporting the first crewed airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight ( Bell X-1 ), highest speed by

468-530: The Air Force 's Bell X-1 , the D-558-II could operate under rocket or jet power. It conducted extensive tests into aircraft stability in the transsonic range, optimal supersonic wing configurations, rocket plume effects, and high-speed flight dynamics. On November 20, 1953, the Douglas Skyrocket became the first aircraft to fly at over twice the speed of sound when it attained a speed of Mach 2.005. Like

504-622: The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). With the addition of small solar arrays, five low-altitude checkout flights were flown under the BMDO program at NASA Dryden in the fall of 1993 and early 1994 on a combination of solar and battery power. In 1994 the aircraft transferred to the NASA ERAST Program to develop science platform aircraft technology. It was renamed "Pathfinder" because it

540-620: The NASA Flight Research Center (1959). On 26 March 1976, the center was renamed the NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Center ( DFRC ) after Hugh L. Dryden , a prominent aeronautical engineer who died in office as NASA's deputy administrator in 1965 and Joseph Sweetman Ames, who was an eminent physicist, and served as president of Johns Hopkins University. The facility took its current name on 1 March 2014, honoring Neil Armstrong ,

576-655: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration . Gossamer Penguin The Gossamer Penguin was a solar-powered experimental aircraft created by Paul MacCready 's AeroVironment . MacCready, whose Gossamer Condor in 1977 won the Kremer prize for human-powered flight, told reporters in June, 1980 that "The first solar-powered flight ever made took place on May 18." The testing ground

612-579: The University of California . Pathfinder flight tested two ERAST-developed scientific instruments, a high spectral resolution Digital Array Scanned Interferometer (DASI) and a high spatial resolution Airborne Real-Time Imaging System (ARTIS), both developed at Ames. These flights were conducted at altitudes between 22,000 feet (6,700 m) and 49,000 feet (15,000 m) in 1997. On September 11, 1995, Pathfinder set an unofficial altitude record for solar powered aircraft of 50,000 feet (15,000 m) during

648-552: The X-15 to its last research program, the hypersonic X-43A , powered by a Pegasus rocket . Retired in 2004, the aircraft is on display near Edwards' North Gate. Though Armstrong Flight Research Center has always been located on the shore of Rogers Dry Lake, its precise location has changed over the years. It currently resides on the northwestern edge of the lake bed, just south of North Gate. Visitors must obtain access to both Edwards AFB and NASA AFRC. The Rogers Dry Lake bed offers

684-629: The X-1, the D-558-II could be air-launched using a B-29 Superfortress . Unlike the X-1, the Skyrocket could also takeoff from a runway with the help of JATO units. The Controlled Impact Demonstration was a joint project with the Federal Aviation Administration to research a new jet fuel that would decrease the damage due to fire in the crash of a large airliner. On 1 December 1984, a remotely piloted Boeing 720 aircraft

720-406: The aircraft had not been fitted with solar cells. HALSOL's aerodynamics were validated, but the investigation led to the conclusion that neither photovoltaic cell nor energy storage technology were mature enough to make the idea practical for the time being, and so HALSOL was put into storage. In 1993, after ten years in storage, the aircraft was brought back to flight status for a brief mission by

756-489: The aircraft was moved to the U.S. Navy 's Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) on the Hawaiian island of Kauai . On one of seven flights there in the spring and summer of 1997, Pathfinder raised the altitude record for solar-powered aircraft — as well as propeller-driven aircraft — to 71,530 feet (21,800 m) on July 7, 1997. During those flights, Pathfinder carried two lightweight imaging instruments to learn more about

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792-452: The aircraft, and served to cool it, similar to how a conventional rocket engine cools its nozzle. Also, instrumented crash test dummies were in the airplane for the impact, and provided valuable research into other aspects of crash survivability for the occupants. LASRE was a NASA experiment in cooperation with Lockheed Martin to study a reusable launch vehicle design based on a linear aerospike rocket engine . The experiment's goal

828-543: The concept as, "What we're trying to do is create what we call an 'atmospheric satellite,' which operates and performs many of the functions as a satellite would do in space, but does it very close in, in the atmosphere" This article contains material that originally came from the web article "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" by Greg Goebel, which exists in the Public Domain. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of

864-452: The craft's motors, avionics and communication systems. That compared with about 14 percent efficiency for the older solar arrays that cover most of the surface of the mid- and outer wing panels from the original Pathfinder. Maximum potential power was boosted from about 7,500 watts on Pathfinder to about 12,500 watts on Pathfinder-Plus. The number of electric motors was increased to eight, and the motors used were more powerful units, designed for

900-411: The equivalence of a 12 miles (19 km) tall transmitter tower. Because of the aircraft's high lookdown angle, the transmission utilized only one watt of power, or 1/10,000 of the power required by a terrestrial tower to provide the same signal. According to Stuart Hindle, Vice President of Strategy & Business Development for SkyTower, "SkyTower platforms are basically geostationary satellites without

936-428: The follow-on Centurion/Helios. The new section was twice as long as the original, and increased the overall wingspan of the craft from 98.4 feet (30.0 m) to 121 feet (37 m). The new center section was topped by more-efficient silicon solar cells developed by SunPower Corporation of Sunnyvale, California , which could convert almost 19 percent of the solar energy they receive to useful electrical energy to power

972-557: The follow-on aircraft. The Pathfinder-Plus development flights flown at PMRF in the summer of 1998 validated power, aerodynamic, and systems technologies for its successor, the Centurion. On August 6, 1998, Pathfinder-Plus, piloted by Derek Lisoski, proved its design by raising the national altitude record to 80,201 feet (24,445 m) for solar-powered and propeller-driven aircraft. In July 2002 Pathfinder-Plus carried commercial communications relay equipment developed by Skytower, Inc.,

1008-478: The island's terrestrial and coastal ecosystems, demonstrating the potential of such aircraft as platforms for scientific research. During 1998, the Pathfinder was modified into the longer-winged Pathfinder-Plus configuration. It used four of the five sections from the original Pathfinder wing, but substituted a new 44 feet (13 m) long center wing section that incorporated a high-altitude airfoil designed for

1044-462: The leadership of Ray Morgan, the first of which was the Pathfinder. In 1983, AeroVironment obtained funding from an unspecified US government agency to secretly investigate a UAV concept designated "High Altitude Solar" or HALSOL. The HALSOL prototype first flew in June 1983. Nine HALSOL flights took place at Groom Lake in Nevada. The flights were conducted using radio control and battery power, as

1080-493: The outboard sections of the wing. Major science activities of Pathfinder missions have included detection of forest nutrient status, forest regrowth after damage caused by Hurricane Iniki in 1992, sediment/algal concentrations in coastal waters and assessment of coral reef health. Science activities are coordinated by the NASA Ames Research Center and include researchers at the University of Hawaii and

1116-509: The power of the sun. In addition, the ERAST Project also wanted to determine the feasibility of such a UAV for carrying instruments used in a variety of scientific studies. On October 21, 1995, the aircraft's fragility was aptly demonstrated when it was severely damaged in a hangar accident, but was subsequently rebuilt. Pathfinder was powered by eight electric motors — later reduced to six — which were first powered by batteries. It had

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1152-428: The time delay." Further, Hindle said that such platforms flying in the stratosphere, as opposed to actual satellites, can achieve much higher levels of frequency use. "A single SkyTower platform can provide over 1,000 times the fixed broadband local access capacity of a geostationary satellite using the same frequency band, on a bytes per second per square mile basis." Ray Morgan, president of AeroVironment, has described

1188-531: Was "literally the pathfinder for a future fleet of solar-powered aircraft that could stay airborne for weeks or months on scientific sampling and imaging missions". A series of flights were planned to demonstrate that an extremely light and fragile aircraft structure with a very high aspect ratio (the ratio between the wingspan and the wing chord) can successfully take-off and land from an airport and can be flown to extremely high altitudes (between 50,000 feet (15,000 m) and 80,000 feet (24,000 m)) propelled by

1224-487: Was at Minter Field outside of Shafter, California . The Penguin was a three-quarter scale version of the Gossamer Albatross II ; it had a 71-foot (22 m) wingspan and a weight, without pilot, of 68 pounds (31 kg). The propeller was driven by an AstroFlight Astro-40 electric motor, powered by a 541 watt solar panel, consisting of 3920 solar cells. Initial test flights were performed using

1260-399: Was flown into specially built wing openers which tore the wings open, fuel spraying everywhere. Despite the new fuel additive, the resulting fireball was huge; the fire still took an hour to fully extinguish. Even though the fuel additive did not prevent a fire, the research was not a complete failure. The additive still prevented the combustion of some fuel which flowed over the fuselage of

1296-400: Was to provide in-flight data to help Lockheed Martin validate the computational predictive tools they developed to design the craft. LASRE was a small, half-span model of a lifting body with eight thrust cells of an aerospike engine . The experiment, mounted on the back of an SR-71 Blackbird aircraft, operated like a kind of "flying wind tunnel ." The experiment focused on determining how

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