Friday, June 14, 2013
- The RQ-14 Dragon Eye sUAVs were recently acquired by Ames from the U.S. Marine Corps via GSA to support this mission—good example of civilian repurposing of military hardware
- Flights occurred from March 10-13, 2013
- 5 science flights with SO2 sensor and 1 science flight with thermal camera (7-12µm band)
- SO2 concentrations of ~6-20 ppm were detected throughout the day
- Collected measurements in the volcano plume coincident with an ASTER overpass
- Expanded flight envelope up to 12,500 ft ASL from 8,000 ft ASL published operational ceiling
- Next deployment in 2014 will include the ARC SIERRA UAV carrying a mass spectrometer and other instruments + Dragon Eye
- Funded by NASA Earth Surface & Interior Focus Area (John Labrecque) and the University of Costa Rica (Prof. Jorge Andres Diaz, Co-I)
- US Flight Team from JPL, ARC, WFF
- Other participants/advisors
- Applied Sciences University Düsseldorf (Germany)
- RadMet LLC (Redwood City, CA)
- Teledaq LLC (Santa Clarita, CA)
- Aerovironment, Inc. (Monrovia, CA) - Principal Investigator: David C. Pieri (JPL)
