Jane Edwards
Anduril Industries and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched on Wednesday an unmanned aerial system from a NOAA Hurricane Hunter P3 aircraft to gather atmospheric data while flying into the eye of Hurricane Ian.
ALTIUS is an autonomous UAS that can be tube-launched from ground vehicles, watercraft and fixed- and rotor-wing aircraft, Anduril said Thursday.
Data collected by ALTIUS could help NOAA better identify changes in a storm’s structure and improve research and operations while ensuring the safety of hurricane hunters.
“ALTIUS pulled off the impossible,” said Carl Newman, deputy director at the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center.
“This has been a long journey and the Anduril team developed some special techniques to allow the drone to survive the launch from our P-3 and successfully circle the eye collecting data. It’s a great move for science,” Newman added.
