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NASA's Pilotless-Aircraft Program Set to Take Off

Posted on: Friday, 21 May 2004, 06:00 CDT

May 21--LANCASTER, Calif. -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the aerospace industry are embarking on a $360 million effort to devise ways so robot- and remote-controlled aircraft can safely share the skies with jetliners and other planes.

Researchers say they want to unlock the full potential of so-called "unmanned aerial vehicles," allowing them to take on such missions as tracking forest fires, monitoring hurricanes and relaying telecommunication signals.

"The fundamental tenet is to preserve the safety of the airspace," said Jeff Bauer, NASA's project manager. "What will come of this is a body of evidence for the FAA to make decisions."

Such aircraft have been limited primarily to restricted military and test areas, and their minimal use elsewhere has been tightly controlled, NASA officials said.

The new effort is aimed at developing recommendations on policies and procedures that would allow unmanned aircraft to use civilian airspace. The recommendations will be turned over to the Federal Aviation Administration, which sets the rules for flying in the national airspace.

Working on the effort is NASA, led by its Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, the Defense Department and six aerospace companies -- Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, AeroVironment, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, and Aurora Flight Sciences.

All make aircraft that either guide themselves by computer or are flown by operators on the ground, including Northrop Grumman's GlobalHawk and General Atomic's smaller Predator reconnaissance planes, both of which have been used by the military over Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dryden will be the center for flight-test work supporting the effort.

"We see Dryden as a hotbed of activity for UAV (unmanned air vehicles)," said Rich Wlezien, who heads NASA's vehicle systems program. "All UAV activities will come through Dryden."

The first steps will focus on flight operations above 40,000 feet and then work down to 18,000 feet. Eventually, researchers would like to see "file and fly" operations, in which the operators of UAVs could file a flight plan and send the aircraft off.

The program's first half is funded at $103 million by the federal government and another $25 million to $30 million is being contributed by private industry. That part of the program will run through 2009.

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(c) 2004, Daily News, Los Angeles. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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