NASA Hosting Live Bilingual Web Chat With Drone Pilot

Beth Dickey

Headquarters, Washington

 

Gray Creech

NASA Dryden Flight Research Center

WASHINGTON -- NASA invites the public to join a bilingual online chat on Thursday, Sept. 23. The chat is NASA's first hosted in Spanish and English on the agency's website.

Participants in the live chat will be able to interact in English and Spanish with NASA pilot Herman Posada. He pilots the agency's unique Ikhana and Global Hawk unmanned aircraft into dangerous conditions such as wildfires and hurricanes. When Posada sits at the controls and flies the aircraft, he is not in their cockpits, but at a ground station miles away. He uses a joystick and video monitors to control the vehicles.

Ikhana, a Predator B modified for non-military missions, carries instruments for environmental Earth science studies. It also is used for advanced aircraft systems research and technology development. The Global Hawk has been very busy this hurricane season collecting tropical storm data.

The event is tentatively scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. EDT from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California, and it will last approximately one hour. The time and date is subject to change due to tropical storm research flights. For the chat schedule, Ikhana and Global Hawk images and video, and to participate with Posada, visit http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/uas_pilot_chat.html  

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