GI Press Releases
January 22, 2009
Planes without pilots Science for Alaska lecture to focus on unmanned aircraft in Alaska
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—The University of Alaska purchased its unmanned aircraft in 2006 and the 40-pound robotic plane can fly up to 20 hours at a time, collecting data even through the harshest conditions. These superlatives make the Insitu A-20 an ideal tool for scientists that need information
from areas that are often difficult or dangerous to get to.
January 16, 2009
2009 Science for Alaska Lecture Series to begin in Fairbanks
January 12, 2009
Student rocket flies with success
First rocket experiment of 2009 launches from Poker Flat Research Range
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—University of Alaska Fairbanks students watched eagerly as their rocket project launched successfully from Poker Flat Research Range on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009. The Ionospheric Science and Inertial Sensing project, called ISIS for short, launched at 2:17 p.m. Alaska
Standard Time and flew as designed to the D-region of the ionosphere. A NASA sounding rocket carried the experiment to an altitude of nearly 61 vertical miles.
January 9, 2009
Busy rocket season to launch at Poker Flat Research Range
December 15, 2008
Computer model defines planetary landscapes
FAIRBANKS, Alaska— A new technique allows scientists to determine the landscape of locales more than 48 million miles from Earth. The method determines the diameter, depth and overall shape of other planets’ surface craters from shadows visible in images captured from probes traveling through the Milky Way. John Chappelow, a postdoctoral fellow with the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center and the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is developing a computer program called CRATERZ, based on the method. The program will read an image’s resolution, and the solar elevation and azimuth to calculate the diameter, depth and parameters to describe the shapes of surface craters on celestial bodies millions of miles away.
December 15, 2008
Mapping the Arctic ocean floor
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—An ice-free Arctic has the potential to unlock a wealth of resources that have long been inaccessible, buried beneath the ocean floor. This year, Russia nabbed a slew of attention for its claim that the Lomonosov Ridge is simply an extension of the Siberian continental shelf, an area believed to be rich in oil and gas reserves.
December 15, 2008
The year of the Alaska volcano
October 31, 2008
Recent test flights demonstrate unmanned aircraft’s multiple uses
In a series of three flights through restricted airspace in Puget Sound, WA, the University of Alaska’s unmanned aircraft system proved its value to science once again.
The unmanned aircraft system, or UAS for short, was launched off the top deck of the Oscar Dyson, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship, Oct 15-16, 2008. The UAS demonstrated to scientists that i

