NASA Pathfinder
| Pathfinder Pathfinder Plus |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Pathfinder in flight over Hawaii | |
| Role | Remote controlled UAV |
| Manufacturer | AeroVironment |
| Primary user | NASA ERAST Program |
| Number built | 1 |
| Developed into |
NASA Centurion NASA Helios |
The NASA Pathfinder and NASA Pathfinder Plus were the first two aircraft developed as part of an evolutionary series of solar- and fuel-cell-system-powered unmanned aerial vehicles. AeroVironment, Inc. developed the vehicles under NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program. They were built to develop the technologies that would allow long-term, high-altitude aircraft to serve as atmospheric satellites, to perform atmospheric research tasks as well as serve as communications platforms. They were developed further into the NASA Centurion and NASA Helios aircraft.
AeroVironment initiated its development of full-scale solar-powered aircraft with the Gossamer Penguin and Solar Challenger vehicles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, following the pioneering work of Robert Boucher, who built the first solar-powered flying models in 1974. Under ERAST, AeroVironment built four generations of long endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the first of which was the Pathfinder.
In 1983, AeroVironment obtained funding from an unspecified US government agency to secretly investigate a UAV concept designated "High Altitude Solar" or HALSOL. The HALSOL prototype first flew in June 1983. Nine HALSOL flights took place at Groom Lake in Nevada. The flights were conducted using radio control and battery power, as the aircraft had not been fitted with solar cells. HALSOL's aerodynamics were validated, but the investigation led to the conclusion that neither photovoltaic cell nor energy storage technology were mature enough to make the idea practical for the time being, and so HALSOL was put into storage.
In 1993, after ten years in storage, the aircraft was brought back to flight status for a brief mission by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). With the addition of small solar arrays, five low-altitude checkout flights were flown under the BMDO program at NASA Dryden in the fall of 1993 and early 1994 on a combination of solar and battery power.
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