Perseus: Global Watcher 1993 NASA; High Altitude Research Aircraft

more at http://quickfound.net/

'Documents efforts of NASA Dryden Flight Research Center to develop and utilize ultra-light, remotely piloted gliders to study Earth's atmosphere. The advantage of these vehicles is that they are inexpensive, and can fly at altitudes twice that of commercial airlines. Released Jan, 1993.'

'The Perseus B established an unofficial altitude record of 60,280 feet for a single-engine, propeller-driven remotely piloted aircraft on its seventh flight on June 27, 1998...'

Originally a public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-059-DFRC.html

The Perseus B was a remotely piloted aircraft developed as a design and performance testbed under NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) project...

The Perseus B established an unofficial altitude record of 60,280 feet for a single-engine, propeller-driven remotely piloted aircraft on its seventh flight on June 27, 1998...

The Perseus B was a high-wing monoplane with a conventional tail design. Its narrow, straight, high aspect-ratio wing was mounted atop the fuselage. The aircraft was a pusher design with the propeller mounted at the rear, and allowed use of an interchangeable payload bay in the Perseus B's forward fuselage for science experiments. This design allowed for unobstructed airflow to the sensors and other devices mounted in the payload compartment. Intercooler radiators were mounted on each side of the mid-fuselage and beneath the inner portions of the wings. The Perseus B incorporated a conventional tricycle-type fixed landing gear. The aircraft was designed to meet Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) Part 23 guidelines for structural strength, and was limit load tested to three Gs —three times the force of gravity —at maximum gross takeoff weight.

Perseus B was powered by a Rotax 914 horizontally opposed four-cylinder piston engine mounted in the mid-fuselage area. An Aurora-developed three-stage, four-turbine turbocharger provided sea-level air pressure to the engine up to 60,000 feet. A two-blade, variable-pitch propeller mounted at the rear of the fuselage was linked to the engine by a driveshaft.

Perseus B was flown remotely by a pilot from a mobile flight control station on the ground. A Global Positioning System (GPS) unit provided way-point navigation data for continuous and precise location during flight. The ground control station featured dual independent consoles for aircraft control and systems monitoring. The system included dual independent telemetry uplinks and downlinks. Dish antennas were mounted atop the control station vehicle on a boom that was directionally controlled by GPS location information generated on the aircraft. The mobile unit included a host of displays on which aircraft and systems performance was continually monitored during flight. The same telemetry and video imaging monitored in the mobile ground station was also viewed by NASA and Aurora Flight Sciences personnel in the Dryden Mission Control Center.

A flight termination system, required on remotely piloted aircraft being flown in military restricted airspace, included a parachute system deployed on command, plus a C-Band radar beacon and a Mode-C transponder to aid in location...