NASA: Smelling the Coffee

By Declan McCullagh and Ben Polen

WASHINGTON -- When the Kauai Coffee Company wanted a cheaper way to monitor the ripeness of its coffee beans, the federal government helped out.

Starting next fall, the sky over America's largest coffee plantation will be dotted with an unmanned NASA aircraft. It'll hover over Kauai Coffee's Hawaiian crops, monitor the ripeness of the beans and inform executives when it's the perfect time for the harvest.

The NASA-funded team, based at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, received a $3.76 million grant from the federal government to purchase and maintain the unmanned solar-powered aircraft. A NASA statement says the project will let Kauai Coffee "know, down to the day, the best time for harvesting the beans, bringing the best flavor to consumers."

"This is a very futuristic approach to precision agriculture," says Stan Herwitz, a professor of earth science at Clark University who's heading the project.

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