William D. Ivancic

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

Donald V. Sullivan

Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 

Delivery of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Data

NASA/TM—2011-216943

January 2011
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William D. Ivancic

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

Donald V. Sullivan

Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 

Delivery of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Data

NASA/TM—2011-216943

January 2011

National Aeronautics and

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Glenn Research Center

Cleveland, Ohio 44135
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K
NASA/TM—2011-216943 1

Delivery of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Data

William D. Ivancic

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Glenn Research Center

Cleveland, Ohio 44135

Donald V. Sullivan

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Ames Research Center

Moffett Field, California 94035

Abstract

To support much of NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research 

Program science, NASA has acquired two Global Hawk 

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Two major missions are 

currently planned using the Global Hawk: the Global Hawk 

Pacific (GloPac) and the Genesis and Rapid Intensification 

Processes (GRIP) missions. This paper briefly describes GloPac 

and GRIP, the concept of operations and the resulting 

requirements and communication architectures. Also discussed 

are requirements for future missions that may use satellite 

systems and networks owned and operated by third parties.

1.0 Background

To enhance upper atmospheric science being supported by 

NASA’s Earth Science Project Office (ESPO),

1 NASA has 

acquired two Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicles 

(UAVs). The Global Hawks reside at the Dryden Research 

Center. The Global Hawks have a flight duration of up to 

30 hr which allows them to take unique measurements in a 

fixed area over a full solar day. This is unlike satellite 

measurements which may pass a given point on Earth once per 

orbit or only once every few days depending on the orbit. As 

such, the Global Hawk measurements are complimentary to 

satellite data. Many of the planned missions have the Global 

Hawk flying beneath NASA’s A-Train (Ref. 1) of sensor 

satellites to supplement the satellite data with upper 

atmospheric measurements.

2.0 Global Hawk Characteristics

The Global Hawk has a maximum endurance of 42 hr with 

an on-station endurance of 24 hr at 3,000 Nm form point of 

departure. It can loiter at 343 kn and has a maximum altitude 

of 65,000 ft which is above the weather and above the 

commercial air space.

1 NASA’s Earth Science Project Office customers consist of NASA’s 

Upper Atmosphere Research Program, the Atmospheric Chemistry 

and Modeling Analysis Program, the Tropospheric Chemistry 

Program, the Radiation Sciences Program, Atmospheric Dynamics 

and Remote Sensing, the Suborbital Science Program

The scientific sensors onboard the Global Hawk are

controlled by a central onboard processing unit. This 

controller provides time correlation meta-data to the 

instrumentation data and stores all sensor data as files. The 

communication processor has an Internet Protocol stack and 

all communication between payload and ground is performed 

using standard Internet Protocols.

Communication with the experimental payload is by a KuBand satellite link. Initial deployment used a 2 Mbps 

bidirectional link. At 2 Mbps, the Ku-Band connectivity has 

been demonstrated to approximately 75° N latitude 

(approximated 3° elevation angle). Future flights are expected 

to use up to 8 Mbps links. The system is capable of 

approximately 50 Mbps but the cost to operate at such rates is 

prohibitive. Furthermore, there currently is not a requirement 

for that volume of data. Four Iridium L-Band modems have 

been multiplexed together to provide some low-rate (kbps)

communication to the experimental payloads for simple 

commanding.

3.0 Missions

There are four major regions that have been identified for 

possible exploration. These are shown in Figure 1. Three use the 

NASA Dryden Research Center (DRC) as base of operations.

The two major funded missions correspond to the top and bottom 

left, the Global Hawk Pacific (GloPac) and top-right Genesis and 

Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) missions.

3.1 GloPac

The GloPac mission has been successfully completed during 

March and April of 2010. The GloPac mission was conducted in 

support of the Aura Validation Experiment (AVE). Aura 

(Ref. 2) is one of the A-Train satellites supported by NASA’s

Earth Observation System. The first GloPac flight was 

performed to confirm operations and test payloads (Ref. 3).

Three science flights followed (Refs. 4, 5, and 6. These flights 

where designed to address various science objectives: 

• Validation and scientific collaboration with NASA Earthmonitoring satellite missions, principally the Aura 

satellite,
NASA/TM—2011-216943 2

Figure 1.—Global Hawk operational capability.

North Pacific Ku-Band Beam

Figure 2.—GE 23 Ku-band beam coverage.

• Observations of stratospheric trace gases in the upper 

troposphere and lower stratosphere from the midlatitudes into the tropics, 

• Sampling of polar stratospheric air and the break-up 

fragments of the air that move into the mid-latitudes, 

• Measurements of dust, smoke, and pollution that cross 

the Pacific from Asia and Siberia, and,

• Measurements of streamers of moist air from the central 

tropical Pacific that move onto the West Coast of the 

United States.

GE 23 

L3-Com

Ku-Band 

Transportable

Terminal

NASA Dryden

Disconnection Over the North Pole , 

Reconnected at 60 Degrees North 

Latitude

3 Mbps

Bidirectional

Link

Store

Forward

 Figure 3.—GloPac communication network.

For GloPac, communication to the scientific payload was 

via Ku-Band using GE-23, a geostationary satellite positioned 

at 172.0° E longitude with a footprint can be seen by a ground 

station at DRC (Fig. 2). The Global Hawk was able to 

communicate through GE-23 until approximately 75° N

latitude which equates to a 3° look angle. This was

approximately 10° farther north than anticipated. 

A simplified communication architecture is shown in 

Figure 3. For this mission, NASA does not share any of the 

communication links. In addition, the ground station is located 

at DRC, effectively adjacent to the science payload command 

and control center. For GloPac, the Ku-Band uplink and 

downlink transmission rate was 2 Mbps. The Global Hawk 

was in constant communication with DRC while within the 

Ku-Band beam. Near the North Pole, at 75° N latitude, the 

Global Hawk lost communication over the Ku-Band link, the 

link between the scientific payload and the science payload 

command and control center. During times of disconnection, 

the scientific data was stored onboard. Upon reconnection, 

that stored data was transmitted to the ground thereby enabling 

the scientific data to be processed as early as possible. In the 

future, this near-real-time science data could be used to 

modify the sensors settings and/or flight pattern during 

mission operations. This near-real-time information may also 

be used to trigger some other sensors either onboard the UAV 

or on other platforms (i.e., satellites or web-based sensors).

3.2 GRIP

The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) 

mission is scheduled to be conducted in the late summer and 

fall of 2010. Its goal is to obtain a better understanding of how 

tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes

(Ref. 7). GRIP will deploy new remote sensing instruments 

for wind and temperature that should lead to improved 

characterization of storm structure and environment. NASA 
NASA/TM—2011-216943 3

plans to use the DC-8 aircraft and the Global Hawk 

Unmanned Airborne System (UAS) for this mission. The 

spaceborne, suborbital, and airborne observational capabilities 

of NASA put it in a unique position to assist the hurricane 

research community in addressing shortcomings in the current 

state of the science. 

The communication architecture for the GRIP mission is 

shown in Figure 4. The communication path is effectively 

identical to that of GloPac with three exceptions. First, the 

UAV will communicate through two or more Ku-Band 

satellites with all satellites’ beams in view of the Ku-Band 

ground terminal at DRC. This will result in a loss of 

communications with the science payload for the time it takes 

to re-point both the ground station and the UAV antennas. 

Such disconnection will be on the order of a few minutes or 

less. Second, the UAV’s mission takes it over the Gulf of 

Mexico and Caribbean rather than the Pacific. The UAV 

should always be within some Ku-Band beam. Therefore, 

GRIP communication will mostly be concerned with full 

utilization of the available communication link in real-time 

rather than utilizing any store-and-forward techniques. A 

persistent file transfer application combined with a rate-base 

protocol is all that is necessary. Finally, the Global Hawk is

flying at low latitudes which translate to good antenna look

angles resulting in better communications links to the Ku-band 

satellites. Data rates of up to 8 Mbps are anticipated. 

3.3 Future Missions

Figure 5 depicts architecture for future missions. In this 

scenario, the UAV may have multiple service provides and 

use multiple ground stations resulting in a multi-hopped, storeand-forward network. Here, storage has to occur between the 

UAV and ground stations. Once information is received at the 

ground station storage unit, it can be forwarded through the 

network to the science data archiving and distribution center.

Note, there also may be large rate mismatches between 

various links. For example, the space link may have a 

downlink on the order of 100 Mbps while the shared link over 

the terrestrial internet may provide an effective throughput of 

only a few Mbps or less.

Because there are at least two separate ground stations and 

these ground stations may be owned and operated by different 

service providers the UAV will be connecting to different 

subnetworks as it moves between the various service provider 

networks. As such, this scenario will require some type of 

mobile networking to operate correctly. A detailed

investigation of the current internet networking and addressing 

of the NASA Global Hawk communication currently 

precludes use of Internet Protocol (IP) mobility (mobile-ip).

The system is currently designed to operate with a custom 

modem and only one ground station. Use of mobile-ip would 

require some redesign and is only practical if other users 

would require such operations.

Ku Band

Satellite - A

L3-Com

Ku-Band Terminal

NASA Dryden

Disconnection During 

Satellite Handover

Due to Repointing

Ku Band

Satellite - B

> 3 Mbps

Bidirectional

Link

 

Store &

Forward

Figure 4.—Genesis and rapid intensification processes.

Ku Band

Satellite

Service

Provider B

NASA Dryden Service

Provider A

Internet

Disconnection During 

Handover Between

Service Providers

 

Store &

Forward

Store &

Forward

Store &

Forward

Figure 5.—Future missions.

Applying Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) to handle 

store and forward and mobility is another potential solution.

Such solutions require adding hardware to each service 

providers’ ground stations.

Since the uplink and downlink modulation system is 

unique, any use of third party ground stations requires 

significant cooperation and coordination with the service 

providers and may not be economically viable unless done on 

a large scale. NASA only anticipates a few flights per year, 

which would not be sufficient to provide a business case for 

third party ground station service providers.

4.0 Requirements

4.1 General Requirements

The general requirement for the delivery of Unmanned 

Aerial Vehicle (UAV) data is to improve the data throughput 

and utilization of current UAV remote sensing by developing 

and deploying technologies that enable efficient use of the 
NASA/TM—2011-216943 4

available radio frequency (RF) communications links. These 

links are not shared by other systems and therefore, congestion 

control and fairness are not major issues. However, if data and 

video are simultaneously utilizing the same RF link, some 

form of congestion control or auto-sensing of available 

bandwidth by the file transfer application is desirable. 

A secondary requirement is to, if necessary, develop and 

deploy a mobile communication architecture based on Internet 

technologies.

4.2 GloPac and GRIP

The GloPac and GRIP architectures are nearly identical. 

One exception is that the Global Hawk is almost always in 

contact with the science payload command and control center

during the GRIP mission. In GloPac, the Global Hawk was 

disconnected for long periods of time due to operation over 

the North Pole and an inability to see GE-23. For GRIP, 

disconnection will be very short—on the order of a few 

minutes. Regardless, all scientific data is archived onboard the 

Global Hawk for later retrieval in case of a failure of the KuBand communication system. Therefore, onboard storage 

capacity is the same for both missions. 

It is important to note that GloPac and GRIP are direct 

source-to-sink architectures. Multi-hop capability is not 

required. Also, all Science Sensor Data is stored onboard the 

UAV in the form of files.

The following requirements are needed for GloPac and 

GRIP mission scenarios and may be useful for future 

missions:

(1) A method, trigger, or signal that indicates the Global 

Hawk is in communication with the ground network must be 

provided.

(2) A transport protocol must utilize the link as soon as it 

becomes available and also immediately fill (saturate) the 

satellite communication link.

(3) A file transfer application must be reliable and ensure 

payload integrity.

(4) The combination of the persistent file transfer 

application and transport protocol must be aware of when a 

link becomes disconnected and suspend transmission until the 

link is re-established. 

(5) The transport protocol must not exceed a specified 

transmission rate, but should be able to adapt to congestion 

due to competing video traffic.

4.3 Future Missions

The following additional requirements are needed for future 

missions:

(1) The system must operate in a multi-hop environment.

(2) Payload integrity must be maintained hop-by-hop, and 

end-to-end if so desired.

(3) There must be an option to configure support for endto-end integrity checking of files on a per-transfer basis.

(4) Hop-by-hop integrity checking must be performed on 

smaller units of data, in order to efficiently replace errored 

portions of a large transfer. This could be per-packet or perbundle and could be performed at any or all for the following: 

the data-link, transport layer or the store-and-forward protocol. 

The rational is to improve efficiency and reduce processing of 

large data sets. For example, one can identify that “packet 6 is 

corrupted” rather than “somewhere in this 5 GB file, a bit is 

flipped”. These checks should include the relevant fields 

identifying the end-to-end flow (source and destination 

address/port/etc) regardless of the underlying protocol being 

used.

(5) The system must be able to reliably transfer files from 

the UAV to the science payload command and control center 

even if the UAV transitions through various networks 

(network mobility).

(6) The system MUST be able to transfer data end-to-end 

without a requirement for network time synchronization. The 

rational is that data may transition through numerous networks 

and since some of these networks may be controlled by third 

parties, one cannot assume that these networks are 

synchronized.

(7) One must be able to communicate with the payload 

using Internet Protocols during times when the UAV is in 

contact with various ground stations. This enables reuse of 

existing commercial protocols and equipment.

4.4 Security Requirements

The following are the security requirements for all 

missions:

(1) Deployment of security is optional. This implies that 

security and payload integrity MUST be implemented 

independently.

(2) Security may be deployed at multiple levels or a single 

level (i.e., One may wish to secure the payload, but not 

necessarily the network or vice versa.).

(3) There must be a capability to ensure payload 

confidentiality.

(4) There must be a capability to ensure confidentiality of 

communications between the UAV and the science payload 

command and control center.

5.0 Conceptual Design

5.1 GloPac and GRIP

GloPac and GRIP have an identical architecture to the 

Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) Disaster 

Monitoring Constellation (DMC) space/ground network 

(Fig. 6). For the DMC architecture, the onboard controller has 

a direct connection to the radio and data storage and hosts the 
NASA/TM—2011-216943 5

x.x.x.x/24 x.x.x.x/24

x.x.x.x/24

Serial 

Ethernet

Internet

Ethernet

Onboard

Processor

Sensor Payload 

Command and Control Center

Radio

Storage

Serial 

Internet

Figure 6.—SSTL DMC architecture.

Ethernet

100 Mbps

Modem

RF

Serial Link

2 - 8 Mbps

Payload 

Control

Payload #1

Payload #2

Payload #N

Global Hawk UAV

Ethernet

100 Mbps

Ethernet

100 Mbps

Modem

RF

Serial Link

2 - 8 Mbps

Network 

Interface

Sensor Payload 

Command and Control Center

Ethernet

100 Mbps

Server

Control 

Computer

Ground Control

Ground Station

Figure 7.—NASA Global Hawk communiction system.

file transfer protocol. File transfer occurs at line rate; thus, 

there is no need for a sophisticated protocol between 

application and radio to determine link conditions such as data 

rate (Ref. 8). 

The SSTL DMC uses the version 0 of the Saratoga file 

transport protocol. Saratoga version 1 has been proposed in an 

Internet Draft as a possible transport protocol that could 

eventually be standardized (Ref. 9). This protocol was 

originally developed for delivery of large imagery files over 

highly asymmetric links. The server portion of Saratoga 

provides a periodic beacon that can be used by the client to 

determine connectivity. Two additional features need to be 

developed to be useful for the NASA UAV remote sensing 

platform. One feature is a rate-setting mechanism as Saratoga 

currently transmits at line-rate. A second feature is a persistent 

file transfer where transmission suspends during periods when 

the line between client and server goes down.

Figure 7 depicts a generalized architecture for the NASA 

Global Hawk communication system. There is no network 

mobility. All addressing is fixed (static). There is no multi-hop 

networking so there is no need for a special store-and-forward 

protocol. The command system is manned during flights, so 

automation is an issue. The RF communication link is not 

shared. Therefore, to improve throughput efficiency from the

UAV to ground, all that is required is an efficient reliable 

transport protocol between the UAV payload control computer 

and the science payload command and control center

computer. However, since file transfers may occur 

concurrently with streaming video, it is highly desirable to 

have the transport protocol sense congestion and adapt 

accordingly.

5.2 Future Missions

A future generic mission using a generic UAV may have an 

architecture similar to that shown in Figure 8. Here, in order to 

maintain communication over greater distances, there may be 

two or more satellite service providers or at least two or more 

different ground stations that the Global Hawk will come into

view of. In such a case, the system will have to handle 

network mobility. In addition, this becomes a multi-hop 

network. Intermediate store and forward will have to take 

place at the ground stations in order to maximize the downlink 

transmissions by separating communication control loops.

As in the GloPac/GRIP architecture, the onboard controller 

has a direct connection to the radio and data storage and will 

host the file transfer protocol. Therefore, there is no need for a 

sophisticated protocol between application and the radio to 

determine link conditions such as data rate.

For GloPac and GRIP, one does not require access to the 

open Internet to obtain connectivity with the Global Hawk.

The ground station is connected to the science payload 

command and control center via a small private network with 

all addressing controlled by NASA. This may not be the case 

for future missions where the ground stations are only 

reachable via the open Internet. For this generic architecture, 

network mobility could be handled by deploying mobile-ip for 

simple payload commanding since command packets of files 

are small and transport reliability is required, but link 

efficiency is not an issue. Store and forward of large files 

could be handled by some other process. Currently DTN 

bundling is a possibility. Store-and-forward techniques might

also help resolve the network mobility issues if the UAV 

air/ground link is inflexible to the extent that dynamic 

addressing is not possible. Without dynamic addressing, 

network mobility at the IP layer is not appropriate.
NASA/TM—2011-216943 6

x.x.x.x/24

x.x.x.x/24

Serial 

Internet

Ethernet

Onboard

Processor

Radio

Storage

x.x.x.x/24

Serial 

x.x.x.x/24

Ethernet

Store and 

Forward

Agent

x.x.x.x/24

Ethernet

Store and 

Forward

Agent

Sensor 

Payload 

Command 

and Control 

Center

x.x.x.x/24

Service 

Provider - A

Service 

Provider - B

Ethernet

Figure 8.—Generic multi-terminal network architecture.

6.0 Conclusions

The current UAV communication system and network used 

to perform advanced atmospheric research closely resembles 

that of a remote sensing satellite. All communication is over a 

direct point-to-point link with no true network mobility and no 

real requirement for multi-hop store and forward. All that is 

required of this system is a reliable high-rate, bandwidthefficient transport protocol that can be rate-limited. For 

missions that may have simultaneous competing downlink 

traffic such as streaming video and large file transfers, a 

transport protocol with some mechanism of self-sensing 

congestion control is highly desirable.

Future Global Hawk missions or future UAV sensor 

platforms may use third party ground stations or may not have 

the science payload command and control center directly 

connected to the ground station. Instead, communication 

between the science payload command and control center and 

the UAV would be over a multi-hop network. Such 

architectures will find routable store-and-forward technologies 

and IP-based mobile networking beneficial. 

References 

1. “Take the A-Train from NASA.” http://csc.gallaudet.edu/ 

soarhigh/A-TrainExplain.html, (May 2010).

2. Aura Mission http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/aura/main/ 

index.html, (May 2010).

3. P. Newman and D. Fahey: “GloPac Flight Report—Test Flight #1,” 

April 2, 2010 https://cloud1.arc.nasa.gov/w/images/0/0c/GloPac_ 

Flight_Report_2April2010.pdf (May 2010).

4. P. Newman and D. Fahey: “GloPac Flight Report—Science Test 

Flight #1,” April 7, 2010 https://cloud1.arc.nasa.gov/w/images/6/6c/ 

GloPac_Flight_Report_7April2010.pdf (May 2010).

5. P. Newman and D. Fahey: “GloPac Flight Report—Science Test 

Flight #2” April 13, 2010 https://cloud1.arc.nasa.gov/w/images/ 

4/4c/FltReport_2010-04-13_GloPac.pdf (May 2010).

6 . P. Newman and D. Fahey: “GloPac Flight Report—Science Test 

Flight #3” April 22, 2010 https://cloud1.arc.nasa.gov/w/images/e/e7/ 

2010-04-22_GloPacFlt_report_Ver1.pdf (May 2010).

7. Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) 

http://grip.nsstc.nasa.gov/ (May 2010).

8. W. Ivancic, D. Stewart, D. Shell, L. Wood, P. Paulsen, C. Jackson, 

D. Hodgson, J. Northam, N. Bean, E. Miller, M. Graves, and L. 

Kurisaki.: “Secure, Network-Centric Operations of a Space-Based 

Asset: Cisco Router in Low-Earth Orbit (CLEO) and Virtual 

Mission Operations Center (VMOC),” NASA/TM—2005-213556, 

May 2005.

9. L. Wood, J. McKim, W. Eddy, W. Ivancic, and C. Jackson: 

“Saratoga: A Scalable File Transfer Protocol,” draft-wood-tsvwgsaratoga-05, work-in-process, May 2010.
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14. ABSTRACT

To support much of NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Program science, NASA has acquired two Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial 

Vehicles (UAVs). Two major missions are currently planned using the Global Hawk: the Global Hawk Pacific (GloPac) and the Genesis and 

Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) missions. This paper briefly describes GloPac and GRIP, the concept of operations and the resulting 

requirements and communication architectures. Also discussed are requirements for future missions that may use satellite systems and 

networks owned and operated by third parties. 

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Communication; Networking security; Remote sensing; Pilotless aircraft 

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