DarkStar completes first flight.PALMDALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 29, 1996--The Tier III Minus DarkStar High Altitude Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle A powered, aerial vehicle that does not carry a human operator, uses aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, can be expendable or recoverable, and can carry a lethal or nonlethal payload. (UAV) successfully completed its first flight Friday. The vehicle took off from runway 040 at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB AFB abbr. acid-fast bacillus AFB Acid-fast bacillus, also 1. Aflatoxin B 2. Aorto-femoral bypass , Calif., at 6:25 a.m. (PST PST Paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia, see there ). During the 20 minute flight, the vehicle achieved its planned altitude of approximately 5,000 feet and completed all preplanned basic flight maneuvers. The system successfully executed a fully automated flight from takeoff to landing utilizing the differential Global Positioning System Global Positioning System: see navigation satellite. Global Positioning System (GPS) Precise satellite-based navigation and location system originally developed for U.S. military use. (GPS). The Lockheed Martin DarkStar Program Manager Richard Karl noted that this major milestone is due to the excellent performance of the entire team. "The contractor team of Lockheed Martin and Boeing have produced a fully autonomous flight vehicle using streamlined prototyping and contracting under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), U.S. government agency administered by the Department of Defense (see Defense, United States Department of). (DARPA)/Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office (DARO) contract. "The support and contributions of NASA, Dryden and Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 301,000 acres (121,805 hectares), S Calif., NE of Lancaster; est. 1933. It is one of the largest air force bases in the United States and has the world's longest runway. personnel are greatly appreciated and went a long way toward making the test program so successful," Karl said. The team expects to review the data from this flight and proceed to higher altitude flights in the near future. Friday's flight marks the start of a flight test program to evaluate basic system performance including the high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) Radar, airborne or satellite-borne, that uses special signal processing to produce high-resolution images of the surface of the Earth (or another object) while traversing a considerable flight path. (SAR (Segmentation And Reassembly) The protocol that converts data to cells for transmission over an ATM network. It is the lower part of the ATM Adaption Layer (AAL), which is responsible for the entire operation. See AAL. SAR - segmentation and reassembly ) and Electro-optical (EO) payloads. At the completion of this work, the system will be prepared for a series of technical demonstrations with the Services. The program is pointing toward participating in Roving Sands '97 in May 1997. The DarkStar system is a high altitude endurance UAV optimized for reconnaissance in highly defended areas. It will operate within the current military force structure and with the existing command, control, communications, computer and intelligence equipment. It can operate at a range of 500 nautical miles and stay on station for greater than eight hours at an altitude greater than 45,000 feet. The air vehicle can carry either the SAR or the EO payload. The DarkStar program is managed by DARPA on behalf of DARO. The prime contractor team consists of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Palmdale, Calif.; Boeing Military Aircraft Division, Seattle; and Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space, Sunnyvale, Calif. CONTACT: Lockheed Martin Ron Lindeke, 805/572-4153 |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion