2009 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

Global
Hawk
NASA Dryden and Northrop Grumman
Corporation (NGC) are working under a five year
partnership for the stand-up and operation of the
NASA Global Hawk system. NGC is providing
technical, engineering, maintenance, operations
support and the command and control portion
of the ground control station. NASA Dryden is
providing the facilities for aircraft maintenance
and ground control station, and is responsible
for ensuring airworthiness of the vehicles, quality
assurance, configuration management, and system
safety. NASA and NGC are each providing
approximately half of the project staffing and
will share equal access to the NASA Global Hawk
system.
The Global Hawk system is the only available
UAS with performance specifications suitable
to meet certain high altitude, long endurance
science payload objectives. During USAF Global
Hawk operations, it has already demonstrated
an endurance of more than 31 hours with the
capability to take more than 1500 lb (680 kg)
of payload to an altitude of 65,000 ft (20 km)
while cruising at 350 knots. As such, it represents
a major step forward in platform capabilities
available for scientific research. The Global
Hawk aircraft has numerous existing payload
compartments and the potential for adding wing
pods. The aircraft has the capacity to provide
science payloads with substantial margins for
payload mass, volume, and power in these payload
spaces.
At the beginning of 2009, NASA and Northrop
Grumman held a debut ceremony at NASA
Dryden to publicly announce the development of
this new capability. Distinguished representatives
from Northrop Grumman, the USAF, and
NASA, including Andrew Roberts (Figure 48),
gave speeches highlighting the NASA/NGC
partnership and the use of the Global Hawk
system for gathering Earth science data. Displays
for each of the Global Hawk Pacific science
campaign instruments were positioned around one
of the Global Hawk aircraft.
During the stand-up of the program, the two
aircraft have undergone extensive inspections
and maintenance prior to their return to flight.
Also, modifications have been made to the aircraft
command and control communications system
and the payload support system. In addition, a
building-based Global Hawk Operations Center
(GHOC) has been developed that is configured
to independently support aircraft and payload
operations. The Flight Operations Room (FOR)
of the GHOC consists of the workstations
occupied by the personnel responsible for the
73