Operating at altitudes above 99% of the Earth’s atmosphere, NASA’s ER-2 aircraft is the agency’s highest-flying airborne science platform. With its unique ability to observe from as high as 65,000 feet, the ER-2 aircraft is often a platform for Earth science that facilitates new and crucial information about our planet, especially when the plane is part of collaborative and multidisciplinary projects.
GEMx
Objective: The Geological Earth Mapping Experiment (GEMx) research project will use NASA's Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS), Hyperspectral Thermal Emission Spectrometer (HyTES), and MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instruments flown on NASA's ER-2 and Gulfstream V aircraft to collect the measurements over the country's arid and semi-arid regions, including parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.