Unmanned Aircraft for Scientific Exploration of Extreme Environments 7 January 2020 1400 - 1500

Unmanned Aircraft Systems have revolutionized our ability to make in-situ measurements that would otherwise be impossible from the ground or impractical from manned aircraft. At the University of Colorado Boulder’s Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, the Integrated Remote and In-Situ Sensing (IRISS) initiative has developed a 3^rd generation unmanned aircraft system for the research in extreme environments such as near tornadic supercell thunderstorms, in heavy rain and hail, and the Arctic. We will present the success of this system in extreme weather and discuss the modular design approach that enables robust and rapid adaptability for a variety of in-situ measurements.