NASA‘s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California has enlisted the help of students to develop a subscale glider to aid weather research, prediction and airborne science programs at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Weather Hazard Alert and Awareness Technology Radiation Radiosonde glider is based on the Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars aircraft and designed to gather research data for weather forecast models on Earth and in space, NASA said Thursday.
NASA added flight control software and hardware, instrumentation and sensors will be prepared for the WHAATRR glider’s early development phase test that will involve remote piloting to a predetermined destination following a drop from an altitude of 100,000 feet.
WHAATRR was selected alongside the Agency Legal Enterprise Capability for Knowledge Sharing program for the NASA Innovation Kick Start grant in November out of 90 ideas submitted for the Agency Innovation Mission project.
“The ALECKS team goal is to create a common information technology resource across Agency legal offices to replace redundant processes and systems,” said Brett Swanson, co-leader of the ALECKS team.
