Electra\u2019s unmanned solar-electric hybrid \u201cDawn One\u201d research aircraft taking off on its maiden flight from Electra\u2019s development facility in Manassas, VA.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe new plane, named Dawn One, is part of the Stratospheric\nAirborne Climate Observing System (SACOS) program. SACOS is being developed\nunder the leadership of Professor James G. Anderson at Harvard University. The\nproject is supported by a contract from the National Aeronautics and Space\nAdministration (NASA) and by the Weld Foundation for Scientific and\nEnvironmental Development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“SACOS is designed to innovatively address a broad\nrange of scientific missions and serve as a climate observing system that will\nherald a new era in the quantitative dissection of the physics, chemistry, and\nbiology controlling critical climate systems. Following the lead of the new\nNational Academy of Sciences report Global Change Research Needs and\nOpportunities for 2022-2031, SACOS promises to dramatically expand our national\nclimate research capabilities,” said Professor Anderson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The high-spatial resolution observations from SACOS\nwill provide, for the first time, quantitative forecasts of risk associated\nwith rapidly expanding wildfires, the increasing rate of sea level rise, the\nintensification of severe storms, and global shifts in arid regions that\ntrigger water shortages. Moreover, these\nquantitative forecasts of risk will, in turn, establish the essential\nintellectual links directly coupling irreversible changes in the climate\nstructure to economics, public policy, and associated societal\ninstability,” Professor Anderson explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dawn One project originated at the Massachusetts\nInstitute of Technology (MIT) led by Professors John Hansman and Mark\nDrela. Detailed design, construction,\nand testing of the aircraft were led by Electra. This solar-battery aircraft is\npart of Electra’s ongoing development of reduced and zero-carbon aircraft\npropulsion technologies, which also include turbine-electric and hydrogen fuel\ncell-based hybrid systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SACOS flight is part of the public celebration of the\n2021 Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, to be presented to Professor Anderson\non September 29, 2022, at Harvard. JP (James) Stewart of Electra and Annick\nDeWald of MIT led the aircraft team that included researchers and students from\nMIT, Harvard, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Stanford, Tuskegee, Embry Riddle,\nUniversity of Michigan, San Diego State, and The University of Texas at El\nPaso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watch a video of the SACOS first flight HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Electra.aero, Inc. (“Electra”), a next-gen aerospace company with a mission to help decarbonize aviation and open new air transportation markets, announced today that it has completed the first flight of a solar-battery hybrid electric research aircraft. This 90-foot wingspan unmanned aircraft system (UAS) made its first flight from Manassas Regional Airport, Virginia on September 9, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unmanned-systems","category-virginia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23566,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23562\/revisions\/23566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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