Название: Ikhana: Unmanned Aircraft System Western States Fire Missions
Автор: Peter W. Merlin, NASA
Издательство: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Серия: The NASA History Series
ISBN: 1493656732
Год: 2013
Страниц: 123
Язык: английский
Формат: epub
Размер: 10.1 MB

From the earliest days of aviation, pilots have enjoyed a certain amount of glamour because of their apparent willingness to face danger in the skies (military or stunt pilots) or their ability to travel to exotic locales (airline and cargo pilots).

During World War I and World War II, radio-controlled aircraft served as aerial torpedoes and aerial targets, roles that evolved into the development of cruise missiles, airborne decoys, and target drones. In the late 1940s and 1950s, drone aircraft were pressed into service for such tasks as flying through clouds of radioactive fallout from nuclear explosions to collect samples without endangering aircrews. In the 1960s, improvements in unmanned vehicle technology spawned development of tactical and strategic reconnaissance platforms. By the dawn of the 21st century, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) – i.e., airplanes without pilots on board – were used more and more frequently for a variety of missions.

The term “unmanned aircraft system” was adopted by the Department of Defense (DoD) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to replace the term “unmanned aerial vehicle” (UAV) to better represent the fact that more is involved than hardware that flies though the sky. A UAS consists of an aircraft, ground-based control system, data link, and related support equipment.

Use of unmanned aircraft prevents aircrew exposure to such hazardous conditions as extreme weather, radiation, or in the case of military UASs, hostile fire. This eliminates the risk of physical harm to the aircrew and reduces political costs in the wake of mission failure. These characteristics have motivated military and civilian agencies to expand the use of UASs wherever feasible.

General Atomics developed a civilian model of an upgraded version of the company’s Predator military reconnaissance platform – called Predator B – to meet specific requirements of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise for a flight-validated, consumable-fuel UAS to perform on-location science missions. Known as Altair, it exceeded minimum performance requirements and set the stage for the Ikhana UAS.