NASA's flying wing crashes off Kaua'i
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau
MANA, Kaua'i — A helicopter and Navy boats held position 10 miles northwest of Kaua'i's Pacific Missile Range Facility late yesterday over the crash site of the $15 million Helios flying wing.
NASA library photo
NASA said the unmanned solar plane was destroyed when it crashed into the Pacific yesterday morning, just 29 minutes after its 10:06 a.m. launch.
On June 7 the Helios Prototype flying wing aborted its first mission to test its fuel-cell technology when leaks were detected in coolant and compressed air systems.
The crash stops cold NASA's $130 million Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology program. NASA Dryden Flight Research Center spokesman Alan Brown said there is no backup aircraft and no new solar plane under construction.
A salvage effort was being planned by the Navy, NASA and AeroVironment, the firm that built the solar-powered plane. The Navy had two boats monitoring the wreckage debris, and a helicopter from the private firm Ni'ihau Helicopters was hovering over the site.
In 2001, Helios set a world altitude record for winged aircraft — 96,863 feet — using just the power of the 62,120 photovoltaic solar cells on its 247-foot wing to run its ultralight electric motors and propellers.
During this summer's series of flights, the Helios craft was scheduled to test a new fuel cell power plant—a technology NASA hoped would lead to an aircraft that could refuel itself from the power of the sun and stay aloft indefinitely.
Its developers envisioned a remotely piloted plane that could serve as an eye in the sky for scientific and weather monitoring missions, or as a super-high telecommunications tower that could relay video images and cell phone conversations, and even restore regional communications after disasters such as hurricanes.
No NASA officials were available yesterday to predict how the Helios crash would affect that long-term vision.
Although Helios bristled with sensors, monitors and communications gear, its handlers released no information about the cause of the crash yesterday.
An accident investigation team will include representatives of the Navy, which owns the missile range from which Helios flew, NASA, which financed the project, and AeroVironment.
While the language of official statements suggested some wreckage was floating, it was not clear how much was recoverable from the surface and how much might have sunk and would require divers or the assistance of deep submersible craft.
Navy spokesperson Agnes Tauyan said the crash site was northwest of the Pacific Missile Range Facility and north of Ni'ihau. NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center reported that Helios crashed within waters controlled by the missile range. Tauyan said a notice to mariners was issued to warn of the drifting wreckage.
Helios was a wide, blue wing, its color from the photovoltaic cells, and both its top and bottom skin clear so that it could make energy from sunlight above and from light reflected off the clouds below it.
The wing was level on the ground, but when it flew, its carbon-fiber wing curved gracefully, the tips upward, like the arms of a cliff diver. The wing was 247 feet from tip to tip, 8 feet from leading to trailing edge, and it had a maximum thickness of just under a foot. Pods affixed to the underside carried wheels, batteries, electronics and other gear.
On this trip, it carried much more weight than ever before. Helios empty weighed just 1,322 pounds. On its record-breaking altitude flight, it weighed 1,600 pounds. On this flight, it weighed more than 2,000 pounds, including two 180-pound hydrogen fuel tanks near the wing ends, and a fuel cell modified for high altitude use.
The goal was to be able to bring the plane to altitude on the electricity produced by its solar panels during the day, and then to keep it aloft overnight on the power produced by the hydrogen fuel cell.
But the Helios project never got to test the fuel cell at altitude. In a June 7 flight, leaks in the coolant and compressed air systems scrubbed the test, and yesterday Helios never got very high—although its maximum elevation before the crash was not revealed.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
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