This award provides funds for final assembly of a proof-of- concept demonstrator unmanned research aircraft and preparation for initial flight testing. The award is the fourth program element in a five program element in a five program element project to design, build, test and fly an unmanned research aircraft. The previously completed program elements (the design and construction of the aircraft components) were funded by Aurora Flight Science, NASA and NSF. NASA anticipates it will fund the fifth element (flight testing) of the program. The promise of significant capability enhancements associated with an unmanned, high altitude, long duration, low Reynolds number, lightweight aircraft has been enthusiastically received within the scientific community. A variety of missions for such an aircraft have been proposed. An incomplete list includes: stratospheric ozone chemistry research; exploring the impact of SST emissions on the stratosphere; measuring the earth's radiation budget; determining sources and sinks of CO2 and CH4; studying stratosphere-troposphere exchange; and hurricane research. Some of these missions require extremely high altitude capability (up to 30km), while others require platforms with less altitude capability but longer durations than required for the stratospheric ozone mission. A single aircraft designs is not planned to accomplish all the missions mentioned above. However, aircraft designs necessary to carry out these missions will be derived from a common technology base that is to be funded, in part, under this project. At the center of the design strategy is a basic aircraft, manned Perseus, that will serve as a proof-of-concept for the scientific unmanned aircraft. This is a high risk project with a tremendous potential for significantly expanding the time and space domain of in situ atmospheric observations that could be collected in the future.***//
