Suggested Searches

4 min read

NASA, Northrop Grumman Continue Partnership For Science

NASA Langley Research Center engineers in Hampton, Va., use flight simulators, such as the Research Flight Deck, to develop cockpit technologies to make airliners safer and more efficient. Airline pilots test the concepts and offer suggestions about how the systems would work in the real world or could be improved.
Image Credit: NASA Langley/Sean Smith

EDWARDS, Calif. – NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center and the Northrop Grumman Corporation have extended a no-cost agreement that enables NASA’s Science Mission Directorate to conduct Earth science research with the Northrop Grumman-developed RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system. The original five-year Space Act Agreement has been extended for an additional five years through April 30, 2018.
Under the original agreement that was effective May 1, 2008, NASA and Northrop Grumman returned two pre-production Global Hawk aircraft to flight status. Northrop Grumman shares in their use to conduct its own flight demonstrations for expanded markets, missions and airborne capabilities, including integration of unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace.

On Saturday, June 19, 2010, oil spread northeast from the leaking Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil appears as a maze of silvery-gray ribbons in this photo-like image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. The location of the leaking well is marked with a white dot. North of the well, a spot of black may be smoke; reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say that oil and gas continue to be captured and burned as part of the emergency response efforts. The large image is at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution (level of detail). Twice-daily images of the Gulf of Mexico are available from the MODIS Rapid Response Team in additional resolutions and formats at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Text credit: Rebecca Lindsey/NASA’s Earth Observatory/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Under the partnership, a permanent ground control station was built at Dryden. A portable ground control station was then constructed and has been used for deployment of a Global Hawk to NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia in support of a 2012 hurricane study. Pilots controlled the aircraft for the first time from both locations.
The two Global Hawk aircraft, among the first seven built during the original Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, were transferred to NASA Dryden from the U.S. Air Force in September 2007. NASA acquired the two aircraft for research activities supporting its Airborne Science Program.
The Global Hawk is a fully autonomous, high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft system that can fly up to 65,000 feet for more than 30 hours at a time. The aircraft has a range of 11,000 nautical miles. Its endurance and range allow for a non-stop flight from NASA Dryden in Southern California to the North Pole and allow it to loiter for up to seven hours over the polar region before returning to its home base.
The Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is capitalizing on the range and dwell time of the Global Hawk for atmospheric chemistry and radiation science missions in addition to hurricane research. NASA’s Genesis and Rapid Intensification and Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel missions helped researchers investigate the development and intensification of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.
 

Metal workers fabricate cowlings for early test installations.
Image Credit: NACA

Data were also collected over winter storms in the Pacific and Arctic region. Scientists for the multi-year Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment study the composition of the tropopause over the Pacific.
In addition to the advancement of science, the Global Hawk also has many other potential applications including disaster support capabilities and development of advanced unmanned aircraft systems technologies.
For more information about NASA’s Global Hawks, see:

 
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-098-DFRC.html
 

For more information about NASA’s Earth science research, see:

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/index.html
  

– end –

text-only version of this release

To receive status reports and news releases issued from the Dryden Newsroom electronically, send a blank e-mail message to dfrc-subscribe@newsletters.nasa.gov. To unsubscribe, send a blank e-mail message to dfrc-unsubscribe@newsletters.nasa.gov. The system will confirm your request via e-mail.

Beth Hagenauer
Dryden Flight Research Center
661-276-7960
beth.hagenauer@nasa.go

Jessica Burtness
Northrop Grumman Corporation
858-618-6931
jessica.burtness@ngc.com