(View from HALO's cockpit - Credit DLR 2023)
ATMOSPHERE & DLR Flight Experiments celebrate 10 years of collaboration!
While CAFE PACIFIC science mission is running in Australia, long standing ATMOSPHERE/DLR Flight Experiments collaboration is reaching its 10th years anniversary!
Back in January 2014, while Rémy was still jet-lagged from Airbus High Altitude Ice Crystal Australian campaign (already!), the latest PLANET software bug fixes on a USB stick in his pocket, Stefan was delving into HALO’s intimacy, making his way within weird Satcom interconnexions and analogue lines operation. All under Katrin’s close supervision... But the team was not to be stopped by such challenges! And HALO, short name for High Altitude and Long-Range Aircraft, was soon ready for ML-CIRRUS campaign, it’s very first PLANET empowered mission. Celebrated with a Beer, as required!
ACRIDICON, POLSTRACC and 25 more campaigns followed, with their own challenges and achievements. Together with DLR Flight Experiments team, we admired HALO’s fanciful maneuvers and unique operations: spiraling, dropping, waving, merging, and many more that this unique flying laboratory can handle.
Ten years later, we are proud to have contributed in some way to the research that DLR Flight Experiments and the science community has produced to better understand and preserve our Planet. We would never have imagined such a good match with our PLANET service!
Along the road, HALO, a Gulfstream G550 based platform, has been continuously improved to remain one of the best infrastructure available for flight science. In addition to incremental improvement of PLANET flight mission management service, such as Dropsondes data handling for instance, ATMOSPHERE notably helped DLR Flight Experiments to set-up a brand-new Satcom on HALO. Collaboration also extended to other DLR platforms, such as Cessna C-208B Grand Caravan, and Falcon-20 aircraft. More recently, PLANET product was fundamentally refurbished to offer ultimate user experience and reliability, while facilitating operation, maintenance and administration tasks. And other features will be soon available such as cellular and wifi communication for hangar and ground operations.
On the human side, Katrin, Andreas, Steve, Rémy, Stefan are still there. And many new people have stepped in: Thomas, Antonio, Tom, Adrien, Soundarya and others... All committed to support DLR Flight Experiments aircraft as the world’s best flight science platforms!
Principal Author: Jean Marc Gaubert, ATMOSPHERE
contact: jean-marc.gaubert@atmosphere.aero
tel: +33 679 231 612
DLR Testimony:
The collaboration with ATMOSPHERE since 2014 has been both trustworthy and positive and we value the partnership we have built over the years. PLANET has proven itself to be an indispensable tool, playing an essential role in our research flight operations. The support provided by the ground team to the scientists on board ensures the quality and precision of the measurements. We can confidently say that our work with ATMOSPHERE and the utilization of PLANET have significantly contributed to the success and reliability of our various research flight missions.
About DLR Flight Experiments: The DLR facility Flight Experiments provides support to internal and external customers during planning, execution and postprocessing of scientific research missions focusing on flight research and airborne science. These research missions either use the aircraft as a carrier platform for scientific equipment or as a research object in aeronautical research. To fulfil this mission, DLR Flight Experiments operates the largest fleet of civil research aeroplanes and helicopters in Europe.
(PLANET application screenshot during CAFE PACIFIC mission - Credit ATMOSPHERE)
About ATMOSPHERE: with offices in France and Germany, ATMOSPHERE is a service-oriented company, that focus on delivering custom connected solutions for airborne science and industrial testing missions. Its PLANET product suite includes satellite connectivity hardware and real-time flight mission management software serving more than 1000 users in the flight test and science communities around the world.
(HALO in Cairns Australia - Credit DLR 2023)
For more info on this publication contact: info@atmosphere.aero