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Robotic Scout To Survey Arctic Ice
Roland Piquepaille writes "The Meridian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a single-engine research aircraft with fixed landing gear designed by engineers at the University of Kansas. According to Technology Review, it will be used to see what happens beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Two units are currently being built for a cost of about 3 million US dollars. The Meridian will fly for up to 13 hours over a distance of 1,750 kilometers. The first flight over Greenland is forecast for next summer, and a second flight will take place over the Antarctic later in 2008."
You can't take the sky from me...
Unless maybe the sun is too low in the sky for solar panels to get enough power?
No idea, a lot would depend upon the time of year, of course. But when you're sending a multi-million-dollar aircraft over a few thousand square miles of ice, you would probably want a more reliable power system. I don't know how much power the radar equipment on the thing needs, but that alone would probably eliminate a solar-powered craft.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I thought the beef we had with Roland was that all of his posted links went to his blog and not to the real source. It doesn't appear that he does anymore. Why still with the hate?