Joint Sponsored Research Agreement: "The ERAST Alliance&quot

The ERAST program was organized pursuant to a unique arrange­ment known as a Joint Sponsored Research Agreement (JSRA).[1524] This type of agreement was authorized by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, and the specific ERAST agreement was authorized under the NASA Administrator’s delegations of March 31, 1992, and February 25, 1994. The purpose of the agreement was to: (1) develop and demonstrate UAV flight capability at altitudes up to 100,000 feet and up to 4 days’ duration; (2) further develop payload integration capabil­ities responsive to the data collection and measurement requirements of the atmospheric community; (3) research activity toward further resolution of UAV certification and civil operational issues; (4) fur­ther demonstrate UAV viability to scientific, Government, and civil users, leading to increased applications for UAVs; and (5) effect tech­nology transfers to the parties to develop a robust United States UAV industry capable of asserting the lead as the premier provider of UAVs for government and civil users worldwide. The agreement, which became effective in September 1994, provided for the terms and conditions of the arrangement, various participation categories,

preliminary budgets for the first 5 years, and operational and reporting requirements.[1525]

The agreement established an Alliance Council, which was to meet at least twice a year, to coordinate with NASA Dryden’s ERAST Project Office on planning the research and development and flight-testing to be performed. The joint agreement provided for ERAST manage­ment through a NASA program manager and a NASA ERAST project manager. Required reports included an annual report, R&D/technical reports, monthly progress reports, intellectual property reports, com­mercialization reports, and management and financial reports. While actual program expenditures could and did vary, NASA’s projected finan­cial commitments from 1994 through 2000 were $2.8 million for 1994, $5.75 million for 1995, $6.05 million for 1996, $6.35 million for 1997, $6.70 million for 1998, $7.25 million for 1999, and $7.25 million for 2000. Finally, the terms and conditions of the agreement provided for extensions through December 31, 2000.[1526]

The above arrangement, however, actually remained in effect after 2000. In 2002, NASA entered into a followup joint agreement with AeroVironment, Inc., of Simi Valley, CA, including its SkyTower sub­sidiary. The new agreement was intended to streamline existing efforts to merge solar-powered UAV development into a single solar-electric plat­form program with the goal of developing multiple aircraft. This collab­orative effort included continued development of the Helios Prototype.[1527]

Industry partners that participated in the JSRA program included four primary companies—AeroVironment, Inc. (builder of the four solar prototype UAV s), Aurora Flight Sciences (manufacture of the Perseus B), General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (builder of the Altus 2), and Scaled Composites (developer of the Proteus). American Technology Alliances (AmTech) served as facilitator for the alliance, and Karen Risa Robbins, a founder of AmTech, played a primary role in development and acceptance of the ERAST JSRA. Of the above companies, AeroVironment was the primary one involved in the solar-powered part of the ERAST pro­
gram. There were up to 28 participants in the alliance, including small businesses, universities, and nonprofit organizations. NASA also worked closely with the Federal Aviation Administration to address a program goal of resolving issues related to operation of UAVs in the National Airspace System, including development of "see and avoid” sensors and "over-the-horizon” communications equipment. Under the joint agree­ment, NASA was able to provide program management and oversight, flight-test facilities, operational support, and project funding. The fund­ing aspect of the joint NASA-industry effort was facilitated because the program was permitted to use Federal Acquisition Regulations as guide­lines rather than as rules. Furthermore, NASA safety regulations were not required to be specifically followed. [1528] As ERAST project manager, NASA Dryden was responsible for the setting of priorities, determina­tion of technical approaches toward meeting project objectives, proj­ect funding and oversight, coordination of facilities for UAV operations, development and coordination of payloads for test flights, and foresight to ensure that actions taken by ERAST alliance partners satisfied NASA’s future needs for UAVs. Each company in the alliance made contributions to the project through combinations of money and services. The ERAST program, however, required only nominal funding by the companies, and, in order to further commercial development of HALE UAVs, NASA offered the companies ownership of all hardware developed by the program.[1529]

Jenny Baer-Riedhart, NASA Dryden ERAST Program Manager for the first 4 years, described the NASA-industry working relationship under the joint agreement as follows:

NASA and the companies agreed on business plans at the annual alliance meeting. Each year at this meeting, I laid out the requirements for the program, based on input from all of the parties. Together, we evaluated our working business plan against these requirements. We set programmatic milestones, as well as milestones for each of the companies.[1530]

Baer-Riedhart added that NASA and the companies put funding into a shared bank account from which AmTech, acting as the go-between for the companies and NASA, distributed the funds to the parties. She noted that, at first, the companies wanted to get their own money, build their own aircraft, and have a flyoff, but that NASA’s vision from the start of the alliance was for the companies to get together to build one aircraft. Jeffrey Bauer, who was the Chief Engineer at Dryden and later served as the last ERAST Program Manager, credits the success of the program to the structure and partnerships that formed the alliance, not­ing: "One of the major attributes of the program is the alliance of gov­ernment and industry. ERAST is not a contract. We work collectively to develop what’s best for the group and community.”[1531] John Del Frate, Dryden solar-power aircraft manager, commenting on the alliance, stated: "The technology early on was immature. We knew there would be prob­lems, but the foundation of the program was built on the premise that we were allowed to take risks, and that made it very successful.”[1532] In addition to Baer-Riedhart, Del Frate, and Bauer, other NASA Dryden senior ERAST program/project managers included James Stewart, John Sharkey, and John Hicks.

Adding an industry perspective to the working relationship between the ERAST alliance partners, Ray Morgan, then vice president of AeroVironment, a company that had over 13 years of experience devel­oping UAVs, noted: "Like most new relationships, the alliance went through an initial courtship phase, followed by a few spats, before it set­tled into an ongoing relationship that worked, more or less, for the good of all.” Morgan added that NASA brought considerable expertise to the program, including vast experience in developing and testing unique air vehicles at high altitudes.[1533]

One area of NASA expertise that Morgan specifically noted was the advice that NASA provided AeroVironment regarding how best to implement redundant systems for critical components, especially where the systems must automatically determine which sensors are work­ing properly and which ones are not. AeroVironment had used "single thread” systems across major components for the first Pathfinder pro­totype, meaning that failure of one component would likely cause fail­
ure of the UAV.[1534] The utilization of redundant systems also extended to other components of vehicle operation. For example, the control sys­tems for the solar-powered UAVs were remotely piloted through a dual radio frequency data link with the vehicle’s automatic control system, which likewise achieved redundancy through the use of two identical flight computers, uplink receivers, and downlink transmitters. In addi­tion, there was a triple set of airspeed sensors and dual Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers.[1535] Even the fuel cells were originally to be com­pletely redundant, but this plan was abandoned because of budget lim­itations and fuel cell development problems. This need for redundant systems in UAVs was reinforced by NASA Dryden’s experience with test­ing UAVs, including a number of program mishaps. The NASA team real­ized that the chance of mission success was greatly improved through the use of redundant systems for the UAVs.