NASA

"7 processing, the photos are transmitted by a communications satellite to NASA Ames in which the imagery is put on an Ames website internet site. Then the imagery is blended with Google Earth maps," mentioned Vince Ambrosia of NASA Ames, the project's principal investigator.

With California's Santiago fire burning around 426,000 acres, and displacing around 500,000 persons from their houses, NASA has stepped in with their IKHANA UAV aircraft and also the Google Earth Maps to support. doing work with firefighters who're struggling from sheer exhaustion because of to becoming on their feet for around 3 days of weighty firefighting, NASA currently has joined ranks so as to remotely fly their Ikhana around 7 with the twelve wildfires in California with all the greatest of technological innovation offered to mankind.

NASA's Ikhana is carrying a sensor package deal of instruments that have already been specifically designed through the room company to determine by smoke, although transmitting infra-red photos and temperate information down with the firemen to the ground, so as to aid them far better strategically battle the fires. using a 10-hour flight method designed to battle the California fires, it flew from NASA's Dryden Flight investigation middle at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The Ikhana is amongst the U.S. Air Force planes working in Iraq and Afghanistan, with all the Ikhana airplane specifically made for NASA being a long-endurance plane that focuses on high-altitude flights. An unmanned aerial car (UAV) that is flown remotely by pilots at NASA's Dryden, the Ikhana is really a standard Atomics Aeronautial techniques Predator B. It specialized in doing work with distinctive sensors to practice the fire photos on board the plane, prior to sending them down with the firefighters. with all the Autonomous Modular Sensor-Wildfire designed for your Ikhana, it permits the remotely flown predator to glimpse about although carrying the fire sensor package deal. roughly per month back, NASA at Dryden had executed a Ikhana demonstration flight sequence as piece with the Western States Fire Mission so as to demonstrate their enhanced wildfire imaging and mapping capabilities, in accordance to Yahoo news.

Oh, through the way-IKHANA is really a Native American Choctaw expression that refers to intelligence, aware or conscious. NASA felt it had been suitable because of with the investigation ambitions NASA had a established for your Ikhana and its connected techniques. a further bit of additional news is the Ikhana aircraft was bought by NASA Dryden in November of 2006, "adapted for environmental science and technological innovation investigation missions." in accordance with the Yahoo report, just about every mission is coordinated with all the FAA to make it possible for the remotely piloted aircraft to fly in america nationwide airspace, although keeping separation from other aircraft.
(2007/10/24/nasa-google-steps-in-with-ikhana-uav-to-help-fight-california-fires/)