1. The role of UAS in meeting NASA’s science objectives Steve Wegener Bay Area Environmental Research Institute NASA Ames Research Center steven.s.wegener@nasa.gov Shephard’s UV Europe July 23, 2009

2. Outline  Why Airborne Science  Why UAS  NASA’s UAS  Issues and Challenges  Looking to the future  Summary

4. 4 NASA Earth Science Satellites

5. NASA Airborne Science Program Airborne observations fill time and space gap between surface observing networks and orbital platforms. Sounding Rocket Program Balloon Program Aircraft & UAS Program Program Objectives: Satellite Calibration and Validation Provide best value methods to perform the cal/val requirements for Earth Observing System satellites Process Studies Facilitate best value to acquire high spatial/temporal resolution focused measurements that are required to understand small atmospheric and surface structures which generate powerful Earth system effects. New Sensor Development Provide best value methods to reduce risk for new sensor concepts and algorithm development prior to committing sensors to spacecraft

6. Earth Science mission types Science Atmospheric chemistry and composition: in situ composition Carbon cycle and ecosystem science: green house gases and vegetation Climate change / cryospheric science: ice caps, sea ice, glaciers Water and energy cycle: surface water, soil moisture, clouds, radiation Earth surface and interior: fault lines, magnetic fields, volcanology Weather: hurricanes, tornadoes, clouds, precipitation Applications Natural disasters: wildfire, flood, tsunami, volcanic plumes Agriculture: drought, vegetation health Air quality: atmospheric pollution Ecological forecasting: Water resources: Weather: Public health:

7. Multiple Remote Sensing Approaches MultispectralRADAR & SAR HyperspectralThermal Surface LIDARAtmospheric LIDAR Passive Microwave Scatterometry Microwave Ranging Limb Sounding Irradiance/Photometry

8. Airborne Science Requirements Activities Suborbital Science Missions of the Future workshop (2004) Produced nearly 50 mission descriptions for UAS Civil UAS Assessment (2005) Series of workshops Report in 3 volumes Suborbital Science Capabilities Requirements report (2007) Major Airborne Science Program report Includes manned and unmanned aircraft Decadal Survey requirements report (2009) Companion to Suborbital Science Requirements Report Focused on airborne requirements for Decadal Survey missions Instrument test, algorithm development, cal/val Includes manned and unmanned aircraft Due summer 2009

9. Air space access requirements Mission typeAir space location Disaster monitoring / management FireForests, urban interface Extreme Weather / FloodAny land area HurricaneOpen ocean, coasts Civil / terror eventAny land area Communications relayLand or ocean Volcano eventsVolcano land areas Green house gas measurementsLand and oceans Pollution plume followingLand and oceans Ice measurementsArctic, Antarctic, glaciers Surface water / soil moisture monitoring Land areas Magnetic field measurementsGlobal

10. Why NASA is interested in UAS? Unmanned aircraft systems provide observations in remote or dangerous airspace where there is risk to pilot and aircraft. They also satisfy requirements for long- duration loitering and air-mass following. Current UAS have the capability to provide observations that manned aircraft cannot achieve, and as systems mature and show promise, there is increased interest in their use by many communities. Coordination among federal agencies is important given the complex, rapidly evolving technologies as well as the policy/regulatory framework that will enable their use in the national and global airspace.

11. UAS Requirements for Science: Workshop Inputs

12. “Suborbital Science Missions of the Future” Platform Requirements

13. NASA operated UAS Global Hawk – AV-1 and AV-6 from USAF ACTD; High altitude, long duration, heavy lift First flights at Edwards in summer 2009; first science mission over the Pacific in September 2009 Desire to operate in Class A for routine radar mapping Ikhana (Predator-B) Medium altitude, long duration, medium lift Demonstrated successful operations in the Western US of fires in 2006, 2007, and 2008 Maintain fire monitoring capability 2009 SIERRA (Shadow/Viking class) Low altitude, medium duration, light lift Flight tested at Fort Hunter Liggett and Crows Landing Desired operations offshore and in agricultural and wilderness areas

14. Historic & Current NASA UAS usage NASA Mini-Sniffer program (1975-82) DOE ARM program NASA ERAST program USCG Alaska (Predator A, Nov. 2003) NASA UAV SDP (11 proposals sent to phase 2), 2 selected based upon low cost after funding cuts to overall program (SDP cancelled) USCG & NASA Alaska (Altair, 2004) NOAA/NASA Channel Islands (April-Nov. 2005) Esperanza Fire emergency response NASA/USFS Small UAS demonstration (Summer 2005) NOAA/NASA Hurricane Boundary Layer Mission Western States Fire Missions (2006-Present) CASIE Sea Ice measurements GloPac NASA, NOAA, Stratospheric Chemistry, and Atmospheric rivers

15. GLOPAC: Global Hawk UAS-AVE vortex fragment flight 30 hour flight Objective 1: sample remaining polar vortex for ozone depleted air Objective 2: sample polar fragment over Pacific Objective 3: Coordination with Aura satellite overpass Objective 4: Pole-to-tropics sampling of air masses Objective 5: Overflight of Mauna Loa lidar Polar vortex Vortex fragment Aura overpasses

16. CASIE-09 Characterization of Arctic Sea Ice Experiment 2009 SIERRA Mission Monitor Sea Ice Roughness as an Indicator of Fundamental Changes in the Arctic Ice Cover Goals: Determine the degree to which ice- roughness monitoring via remote sensing can detect basic changes in ice conditions such as ice thickness and ice age. Investigate relationships between ice roughness and factors affecting the loss or maintenance of the perennial ice cover. Determine how roughness varies as a function of different kinematic conditions and ice properties. Second science flight July 22, 2009

17. Wildfire Research and Applications Partnership 2005-2008 Objectives: Collaboratively define needs and data / information gaps for improving wildfire imaging; R & D of those required technologies; Demonstration and validation of those technologies; Technology transfer and training. To: Increase information content; Reduce information delivery time; Simplify data integration processes.

18. So. CA Missions October 2007 CDE In-Use at San Diego County EOC

19. 1) WRAP-developed Wildfire - Collaborative Decision Environment (W-CDE) is operational in the National Incident Command Center (NICC) “war-room” at NIFC in August 2008. Integrations also occurring at the (GACCs) in late 2008 and 2009. Impact: More efficiently manage fire resources and info at the national and regional scale. Partner Investment: Over $100K in labor and management costs. 2) Building on WRAP sensor developments, USFS awarded a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase 1 grant (2008) to Xiomas, Inc to replicate the AMS-Wildfire sensor capabilities for operational status. Impact: Same capabilities as NASA AMS-Wildfire for national fire operations by NIFC. Partner Investment: Currently ~$80K; Planned $1-3M for final sensor 3) Building on WRAP developments, USFS procured two data telemetry systems (AirCell) for 2009 installation into the NIFC NIROPS aircraft. Impacts: Reduce data delivery time from hours to minutes; order of magnitude decrease. Partner Investment: Exceeds $300K. 4) Building on WRAP demonstrations, USFS initiated contracting and procurement of small UAS test-bed platforms for tactical wildfire imaging. Impact: USFS one of only a handful of civil agencies with operational UAS experience. Partner Investment: Will exceed $100K in FY2009. WRAP - TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

20. Conventional Wisdom Conventional Wisdom Acceptance in Airspace Acceptance in Airspace Cost Cost Reliability Reliability RF Spectrum RF Spectrum Contingency Management Contingency Management UAS Challenges from an Earth Science Perspective

21. Looking forward UAS in sensor web Ice Bridge Earth Venture Partner in Progress

22. Great potential Great challenges Great successes UAS are valuable tools for Earth Science Summary

23. Thank you Steve Wegener NASA Ames Research Center, MS 245-5 Moffett Field, CA 94025 650/604-6278swegener@mail.arc.nasa.gov Thank You