Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
NASA Flies Large UAS Without Chase Plane
Demonstrates detect-and-avoid technology

In June NASA flew its large unmanned Ikhana UAS for the first time in public airspace without a chase aircraft. The modified General Atomics MQ-9 took off from NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and flew a 2.5-hour, 415-nm mission through some of the busiest civil airspace in the U.S. at a variety of altitudes.