BER - Unmanned Aerospace Vehicle Program
We realized from the outset that airborne measurements are critical for providing information about radiative fluxes, water vapor profiles, and cloud top properties in the atmosphere. An ideal measurement platform is an aircraft that can hover continuously at high altitudes above a cloud and radiation testbed site. The DOE asked Sandia to lead a multilaboratory program to develop the necessary instrumentation and measurement techniques to use unmanned aerospace vehicles for climate measurements. We used the General Atomics Altus unmanned aerospace vehicle on a record-setting scientific flight of twenty-six continuous hours over the Oklahoma cloud and radiation testbed site. Subsequently, the Altus set a new altitude record of 43,500 feet for a single-stage turbocharged engine and was used as part of a large test at the atmospheric radiation measurement site. The radiation flux profiles obtained there, in conjunction with the simultaneous in situ aerosol and cloud microphysical sampling conducted by manned aircraft, constitute a unique data set for testing radiation models. We are currently on a joint mission with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, using a two-stage turbocharged Altus to extend these measurements to altitudes above 50,000 feet to study tropical cirrus clouds and their effects on the radiation budget.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. has four facilities in southern California that are dedicated to the design, development, training and manufacture of unmanned aircraft surveillance systems and associated hardware. GA-ASI's corporate headquarters is located in a 218,000 square feet facility in Rancho Bernardo, California. Engineering, software development, avionics, mechanical manufacturing, composite manufacturing and administrative support are performed within this location. This facility allows GA-ASI to satisfy U.S. and international production demands. A 71,000 square feet research and development (R&D) facility is located in Adelanto, California. This state-of-the-art manufacturing facility is dedicated to R&D projects and low rate production systems. GA-ASI has two flight operations facilities - El Mirage and Gray Butte - located in the Mojave Desert just east of Los Angeles. Flight testing, flight training, aircraft final checkout and other operations are performed at these locations. The El Mirage facility has 21,000 square feet of hangar and office space with a 5,000 ft. runway; Gray Butte has three 5,000 ft. plus runways and 80,000 square feet of modern hangar and office facilities.
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i will add some other projects that GA are involved in over time
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