News

  • With full flaps and speed brakes deployed, one of NASA's high-altitude ER-2 environmental science aircraft descends on final approach to the runway at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif. The research aircraft is based at NASA Armstrong's Bldg. 703 adjacent to the Air Force facility.

    NASA ER-2 Aircraft Continues Earth Ecosystem Research

    The second year of the HyspIRI airborne campaign on the high-altitude ER-2 is gathering data about the health of vegetation in six diverse areas.

  • NASA Widens 2014 Hurricane Research Mission

    During this year's Atlantic hurricane season, NASA is redoubling its efforts to probe the inner workings of hurricanes and tropical storms with two unmanned Global Hawk aircraft flying over storms and two new space-based missions.

  • A view of mountains and sea ice near Thule Air Base, Greenland, from the NASA P-3 on May 6, 2014.

    NASA IceBridge Concludes Arctic Field Campaign

    Researchers with NASA's Operation IceBridge have completed another successful Arctic field campaign. On May 23, NASA's P-3 research aircraft left Thule Air Base, Greenland, and returned to Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia marking the end of 11 weeks of polar research.

  • The synthetic aperture radar developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory mounted on NASA's C-20A research aircraft captured this image of Peru's Ubinas volcano on April 14, 2014,

    NASA Airborne Research Focuses on Andean Volcanoes

    Volcanoes in Central and South America were the targets of a NASA airborne synthetic aperture radar imaging mission in late April and early May 2014.

  • NASA-UCI Study Indicates Loss of West Antarctic Glaciers Appears Unstoppable

    Loss of West Antarctic Glaciers Appears Unstoppable

    A new study by researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine, finds a rapidly melting section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in an irreversible state of decline, with nothing to stop the glaciers in this area from melting into the sea.

  • ACCESS II Alternative Jet Fuel Flight Tests Begin

    ACCESS II Alternative Jet Fuel Flight Tests Begin

    NASA took to the skies to begin a series of flight tests to gather critical data that may aid in the development of cleaner aircraft fuels.

  • NASA G-III

    California Faults Moved Quietly After Baja Quake

    A new NASA study finds that a major 2010 earthquake in northern Mexico triggered quiet, non-shaking motions on several Southern California faults.

  • Set up on a ranch in Rutherford County, N.C., NASA's Dual-frequency, Dual-polarization, Doppler Radar (D3R) is one of several ground radars measuring rain as it falls from clouds.

    NASA Field Campaign to Measure Appalachian Rainfall

    The weather of mountain regions -- rain, ice, hail, wind, fog -- is difficult to predict. A NASA field campaign in North Carolina aims to change that.

  • The HU-25C Guardian aircraft will look like this when it flies behind NASA's DC-8 as seen in this image from ACCESS I flights in 2013.

    NASA Set to Premiere High-Flying Sequel

    NASA researchers beginning in early May will take to the skies with a DC-8 and other aircraft to conduct a series of flight tests designed to study the effects on emissions and contrail formation of burning alternative fuels in jet engines.

  • Guatemalan volcanoes

    NASA Radar Imaging Mission Travels to Central and South America

    NASA Earth Science mission is focusing on surface deformation near volcanos, forest structure, levees and subsidence in Central and South America.

  • A C-23 Sherpa airborne science aircraft departed Wallops Flight Facility on a journey to conduct Earth science missions in Alaska from May to mid-November.

    C-23 Departs for 6-month Alaska mission

    A C-23 Sherpa airborne science aircraft departed Wallops Flight Facility on a journey to conduct Earth science missions in Alaska from May to mid-November.

  • Students and teachers from Guam High School learn about how ATTREX scientists control their instruments on Global Hawk from the Payload Mobile Operations Facility.

    NASA Brings Science to Life in Guam Classrooms

    In addition to doing cutting-edge atmospheric science, ATTREX team shared the excitement of their scientific mission with students, teachers in Guam.

  • NASA Global Hawk at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam

    NASA Completes ATTREX Flights in Search of Climate Change Clues

    Science flights from Guam during the Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment tracked upper atmosphere changes to help researchers understand how they affect Earth's climate.

  • Northern Greenland mountains from the NASA P-3

    NASA's Operation IceBridge Begins New Arctic Campaign

    Researchers aboard NASA's P-3 research aircraft left the agency's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., March 10 for Greenland to begin a new season of collecting data on Arctic land and sea ice.

  • Aerial photo of a 25-acre sinkhole that formed unexpectedly near Bayou Corne, La., in Aug. 2012. Image Credit:  On Wings of Care, New Orleans, La.

    NASA Radar Demonstrates Ability to Foresee Sinkholes

    New analyses of NASA airborne radar data collected in 2012 reveal the radar detected indications of a huge sinkhole before it collapsed and forced evacuations near Bayou Corne, La. that year.

  • NASA's unmanned Global Hawk is pushed out of a hangar on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, in preparation for an ATTREX science flight over the Western Pacific.

    NASA Completes First ATTREX Science Flight from Guam

    A lengthy science flight over Western Pacific tracked changes in upper atmosphere to help researchers understand how the changes affect Earth's climate.

  • Researchers review proposed IceBridge flight lines during mission’s science team meeting at NASA Goddard

    NASA IceBridge Science Team Plans for Future

    Operation IceBridge's science team recently met at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to discuss the upcoming Arctic campaign schedule to start in March 2014.

  • A small part of the Hofsjökull ice cap in Iceland, which encompasses several glaciers.

    NASA Radar Maps the Winter Pace of Iceland’s Glaciers

    A high-precision radar instrument from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., left Southern California for Iceland today to create detailed maps of how glaciers move in the dead of winter.

  • MABEL, short for "Multiple Altimeter Beam Experimental Lidar," serves as an ICESat-2 simulator.

    New Laser Technology Reveals How Ice Measures Up

    New results from NASA's MABEL airborne campaign demonstrated that a photon-counting technique will allow researchers to track the melt or growth of Earth’s frozen regions.

  • NASA Global Hawk

    NASA Global Hawk Ready for 2014 ATTREX Mission

    A NASA Global Hawk recently completed a checkout flight of science instruments to be used in the Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment.

  • Glaciologist Lora Koenig (left) operates a video recorder that has been lowered into the bore hole to observe the ice structure of the aquifer in April 2013.

    Enormous Aquifer Discovered Under Greenland Ice Sheet

    Using data from NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne campaign, a large liquid water reservoir buried underneath compacted snow and ice in Greenland has now been mapped.

  • Spatial distribution of snow water equivalent across the Tuolumne River Basin from April 10 to June 1, 2013 as measured by NASA's Airborne Snow Observatory.

    NASA Snow Mapper Reaps Big Benefits for California

    A new NASA airborne mission has created the first maps of the entire snowpack of two major mountain watersheds in California and Colorado, producing the most accurate measurements to date of how much water they hold.

  • Members of the IceBridge team greet the NASA P-3 after its first landing on McMurdo Station’s sea ice runway.

    NASA Pilots Train for Antarctic Flying

    Before IceBridge's Antarctic campaign, NASA P-3 research aircraft pilots and flight engineers got extra training that simulated landing and taking off on a sea ice runway.

  • ER-2 pilot in cockpit at 70K ft

    Airborne Science Program Trailer

    The latest video on the ATTREX mission features footage taken at 70,000 ft from the ER-2 cockpit.  This and other videos on the mission can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/sciflychannel.

  • NASA Aircraft Collects Data On Earth's Ecosystems

    NASA Aircraft Collects Data On Earth's Ecosystems

    NASA's ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft wrapped up the fall 2013 series of flights during the first week in December for the Hyperspectral Infrared Imager, or HyspIRI, airborne campaign.

  • A MCoRDS’s underwing radar antenna arrays mounted beneath the wing of NASA’s P-3 aircraft at McMurdo Station’s airfield

    Airborne Radar Looking Through Thick Ice

    The bedrock hidden beneath the thick ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica has intrigued researchers for years. Scientists are interested in how the shape of this hidden terrain affects how ice moves -- a key factor in making predictions about the future of these massive ice reservoirs and their contribution to sea level rise in a changing climate.

  • NASA Global Hawk

    NASA's HS3 Hurricane Mission Highlights

    NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel airborne mission known as HS3 wrapped up for the 2013 Atlantic Ocean hurricane season at the end of September, and had several highlights. HS3 will return to NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., for the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season.

  • NASA P-3 flies over Antarctica

    IceBridge at McMurdo: A Year and a Half of Planning

    Making the current NASA Operation IceBridge campaign – the first to ever operate directly from Antarctica – a reality took a year and a half of planning and coordination, finishing with weeks of intense work both at home and in Antarctica.

  • Antarctic volcano Mount Erebus seen over the NASA P-3's right wing

    Three in a Row for NASA's IceBridge

    Researchers with NASA's Operation IceBridge kicked off this year's Antarctic campaign with three consecutive science flights.

  • Mt. Fuji was one of the Japanese volcanoes imaged by JPL's UAVSAR

    NASA Aircraft Images Japanese, Hawaiian Volcanoes

    NASA's C-20A Earth science aircraft carrying a specialized synthetic aperture radar system has wrapped up a short mission to image Japanese volcanoes.

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