NASA Ikhana Assists SoCal Firefighters 60
ackthpt writes "Ikhana (a NASA drone) is primarily designed for suborbital earth sciences missions, but may be fitted out with a variety of sensors. Wednesday, Ikhana took off from Edwards Air Force Base for a 10 hour mission to observe forest fires in California, scanning the terrain from 23-25,000 feet using a variety of sensors for visible and IR light. Able to remain aloft for up to 30 continuous hours Ikhana serves up information in minutes, a process that takes hours when done by manned aircraft observation. 'The data is processed on the aircraft, up-linked to a satellite and then downloaded to a ground station. From there it's delivered to a computer server at NASA Ames. The imagery is then combined with Google Earth maps. Command center personnel can view the images on their computer screens and then delegate local firefighters accordingly.'"
Re:Why does it look like the Predator-B? (Score:5, Informative)
Flight track @ FlightAware (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Now? (Score:5, Informative)
I think that particular plane is a NASA research asset, not part of some standard emergency response plan, and was not presumed to be deployed for that particular situation at all.
Maybe not maximum benefit, but I imagine the thermal sensors could be very valuable on Wednesday for places where it was not easy to tell visually where exactly fires were.
Larry
Global Hawk is being used as well (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why does it look like the Predator-B? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Now? (Score:3, Informative)
Weather satellites orbit at over 22000 miles away. UAVs can fly at an altitude closer to 22000 feet (or less). They can see things in much greater detail than satellites in geostationary orbit.