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NASA Meatball Ikhana Photo Collection banner
 
Ikhana

Carrying its sensor pod, NASA's remotely piloted Ikhana unmanned aircraft banks away during a checkout flight in the Western States Fire Mission.

 
Photo Number: ED07-0186-01
Photo Date: August 9, 2007
 
Formats: 640x621 JPEG Image (139 KBytes)
1280x1242 JPEG Image (417 KBytes)
3000x2910 JPEG Image (2259 KBytes)
 
Photo
Description:
NASA and the U.S. Forest Service are testing newly developed technologies to improve wildfire imaging and mapping capabilities ion the Western States Fire Mission. From mid-August through September, 2007, NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center flew its remotely piloted Ikhana, a General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Predator B unmanned aircraft system adapted to civil missions, in a series of missions to demonstrate the capabilities of sophisticated new thermal-infrared imaging sensors and real-time data communications equipment developed at NASA's Ames Research Center. The sensor is capable of peering through thick smoke and haze to record hot spots and the progression of wildfires over a lengthy period.

The first flight of the series Aug. 16, 2007 captured images of California wildfires, including the huge Zaca Fire in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. Other flights in the series were to take the aircraft to image wildfires burning in the Pacific Northwest during missions lasting more than 20 hours. The data is overlaid on Google Earth maps and downlinked in near-real time to the Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, and made available to fire incident commanders to assist them in allocating their fire-fighting resources.

 
NASA Photo by: Jim Ross
 
Keywords: Ikhana, Western States Fire Mission, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Predator B unmanned aircraft, thermal-infrared imaging sensors, real-time data communications equipment, Zaca Fire, Interagency Fire Center, Google Earth
 


Last Modified: October 25, 2007
Responsible NASA Official: Marty Curry
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