2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

Aerosonde Tropical
Storm Observations
Science Focus: Weather
Sponsor: NOAA, A. Roberts, NASA HQ
Location: Atlantic Ocean, Barbados
The Aerosonde Unmanned Aerial
System (UAS) was chosen to be
part of the NOAA/NASA UAS
Hurricane Demonstration Project
with evaluation flights beginning
in 2005. On September 16, 2005, an historic
ten-hour Aerosonde mission marked the first
time detailed observations were provided by
a UAS in boundary layer conditions during a
tropical storm.
In 2008, the project goals were to fully test
and document the capabilities and limitations
of the Aerosonde platform, provide critical
low-altitude wind and thermodynamic data
directly to NOAA’s National Hurricane
Center in real time, and through research
and analysis of all the data collected, improve
our basic understanding of the hurricane
environment to improve future forecasts of
hurricane intensity change.
With the demonstrated capacity to operate
in hurricane conditions and provide low
altitude, in situ observations in a critical
region where manned aircraft cannot safely
operate, the NOAA, NASA and DOE
partners agreed in February 2006 to focus
on low-level hurricane winds. The Low
Altitude, Long Endurance (LALE) portion of
the demonstration project made additional
landmark events on November 2, 2007,
with a 17.5 hour mission into Hurricane
Noel, which directly impacted the National
Hurricane Center operational forecast by
providing near real-time data. UAS hurricane
endurance (17.5 hours) and minimum altitude
(82 m) records were also achieved.
The 2008 UAS Hurricane (LALE)
demonstration project is a NOAA/NASA
partnership which is focused on using small
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