By Evan Ackerman
Last week, NASA and AUVSI invited a carefully selected, elite group of media (which obviously included IEEE Spectrum) to take a tour of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems programs at NASA Dryden. The Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) is located approximately in the middle of nowhere, inside Edwards Air Force Base on a huge dry lake bed out in the Mojave desert. The remoteness of the area, plus the availability of over 100 square kilometers of empty flat lake bed to land on if necessary, makes Dryden a fantastic place to test out all kinds of futuristic and occasionally bizarre aircraft. And we got to meet a few of them.
Read the full article here: NASA's Futuristic Drone Research Lab
Comments
don't they do apportions bill for operational costs of the mars missions.. which would put it on the funded already listing.. but yeah you are right mars curiosity rover is operational.. this lab would likely not be.
@LanMark,
I heard that vital missions at NASA are still proceeding as planned. I have to imagine that the Curiosity Rover would be on that list of vital missions.
Josh
A more realistic picture of the lab right now would be no people and every monitor and lights turned off. :) since even the Mars rover is shutdown (well sleep mode).
I love everything that NASA is doing for the Drone Community/Market. The drone collision avoidance software and maybe even the hardware that the FAA is looking for will come from the research and work that NASA is doing!!! It's an exciting time to be in this Hobby and market!