World View Executes NASA Flight Opportunities Program Mission

World View, the stratospheric exploration company, has successfully executed a Z-Class high-altitude mission commissioned by the NASA Flight Opportunities program office (FOP) for two principal customers, the NASA Ames Research Center and Space Environment Technologies.

The Z-Class mission launched from Spaceport Tucson and carried two radiation detection experiments. The first is a chip-based radiation sensor developed by scientists at the NASA Ames Research Center and the second is the Automated Radiation Measurements for Aerospace Safety (ARMAS) system developed by a team led by Principal Investigator Dr. W. Kent Tobiska of Space Environment Technologies.

ARMAS uses an innovative approach with airborne dosimeter sensors and ground-based servers to both enhance space science research and improve aviation safety. The data is used by NASA’s Nowcast of Atmospheric Ionizing Radiation for Aviation Safety (NAIRAS) model of the global radiation environment. The goal of ARMAS is to enable air traffic management to monitor global radiation “weather,” allowing commercial air traffic to avoid higher radiation areas. The ultimate objective of this research is to reduce crew and passenger radiation exposure by flying in lower radiation regions or spending less time in higher radiation locations.

World View offers two distinct stratospheric flight vehicles, Z-Class and the Stratollite®. The Z-Class vehicle is a reliable and affordable workhorse option for high-altitude research missions like the one conducted today.

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