NASA's unmanned Global Hawk completes key test flight
By Donald Melanson 
posted April 3rd 2010 7:12AM
posted April 3rd 2010 7:12AM
It's not the miniature robotic space shuttle that NASA's planning to send into orbit this month, but another of the space agency's unmanned vehicles has edged closer to its beginning its mission, with the "nearly autonomous" Global Hawk aircraft having completed a key test flight bright and early on April 2nd. While the aircraft has flown before, this was the first flight for it after being loaded up with eleven different scientific instruments, which will be used to examine trace gases, aerosols, and dynamics of the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. This flight will shortly be followed by another test run to ensure that everything checks out, after which it will begin its first long-duration mission sometime later this month. While there's no video of this particular test flight, there is a video of the instruments being loaded onto the aircraft, shot with the very camera that's now installed vehicle's tail (and augmented with the requisite Benny Hill theme song). Check it out after the break.
Pah, it needs a rocket booster to enter low orbit... nice machine though!
Video or it (the flight) didn't happen, NASA!
@bigsofty
Um, doesn't EVERYTHING need a rocket booster to enter low orbit . . . ?
@bigsofty wtf IS this crap?
Scramjets are also theoretically capable of producing the thrust required to reach Mach x25, the speed needed to break free of Earth's gravity and enter orbit. However, no scramjets have been built that have reached that velocity. Rocketboosters are the only available means of leaving earth.
@bigsofty
I hear there's an iPad app for controlling that Global Hawk. Well, I guess there's an app for practically everything.
@James Sonne For now that is true. On the other hand, one could make hybrid launch vehicle with first stage being ramjet/scramjet powered and the second stage being rocket powered. You can read more about russian GNOME ICBM, it used this concept. It was politics and death of the chief designer that grounded the project, but otherwise the prototype performed very well.
Seems to me that most of the innovation and tech in the Global Hawk is in the algorithms. Otherwise it looks just very usual. I have somewhat mixed feeling when I see that there is more and more tech in algorithms nowadays. I would love to see equal amount of development into novel aerodynamic concepts.
@stoffer After 150 million years of evolution, most flying birds have about the same basic shape. It works well, and results matter more than uniqueness.
Very excited to see more unmanned vehicles, as it really opens the envelope on performance and dangerous missions. =)
@Ducman69 You have a valid point about the evolution, but keep in mind, that birds were confined to muscular and skeletal system of their reptilian ancestors, so they couldn't evolve into a shape of e.g. Piaggio P.180 or Burt Rutan's Global Glyer. Birds have also one unique capability which is hard to engineer - variable aerodynamic configurations. Also, birds flap their wings, again something very hard to engineer.
That thing flies? I prefer my trustworthy unicorn.
It was actually built by Northrop Grumman, not NASA. NASA only constructed the scientific instruments. The global Hawk has been out since 2007.
@nachotech
Actually that would be incorrect. Global Hawk has in operations for much of the last decade.
Just wondering why is it the size of a small plane, I had always thought it was much smaller. Anyway, that top cover they placed on last is a joke. The instruments aren't even half the height it covered.
@darkmax So you're an aerospace engineer and caught their mistake? You better get them on the phone and let them know!
Seriously though, that dome contains the SATCOM which requires a lot of space. You try shoving a 5' diameter satellite dish in there and making it aerodynamic.
NASA? I thought that was supposed to be Skynet.
Nice to see one of those used for peaceful purposes for a change.
@MikeZ Not for long.
@MikeZ
For someone who uses the SDF emblem, you have no idea that there is a version call the Predator, a successor to the Global Hawk with assault capabities.
@darkmax Just STFU and let the grown-ups talk instead of acting on your false assumptions.
Of course the armed version has been used to blow stuff up while the unarmed version has been used to find more stuff to blow up.
That platform has been around for years (it's actually a senior citizen as far as unmanned vehicles are concerned) but it's a rare pleasure to see it used for something constructive.
@MikeZ "Of course the armed version has been used to blow stuff up while the unarmed version has been used to find more stuff to blow up."
LOL.
Those wings will never support Hellfire Missiles!!
@spikeuk76 They'll switch to lasers.
@spikeuk76 They are not intended for that. These are high aspect ratio, efficient wings for long distance and high altitude flight.
@Atkins It's gonna be a lot of work fitting a shark in there.
Here is GloPac in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1LCR7CluMY&feature=player_embedded#
Where do I sign up so that they can strap me in with duck tape and fly me to the moon?
@cdf74dc9
At the bottom-right of your testament.
That was such a waste of the Benny Hill Theme.
This one is WAY better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUYbu5DJA1U
@gerrrg
Haven't heard that old tune in a long time, it sure brings back fond moments from the show. He was so under-appreciated.
@darkmax
Yep...Benny Hill was pure awesome-o.
I am always surprised by how large the predator drones actually are.
I wonder if an autonomous aircraft costs more than a manned one.
Yeah, Engadget. NASA has almost nothing to do with putting the X-37 up this month. That's been DARPA/Air Force since Bush pulled Constellation out of his bum. They keep in touch about certain systems, primarily thermal protection, but NASA is NOT putting it up. It's not splitting hairs. It's a classified Pentagon launch.