NASA's C-20A Earth science aircraft carrying a specialized synthetic aperture radar system has wrapped up a short mission to image Japanese volcanoes.
UAVSAR
NASA's C-20A-mounted UAVSAR collected data about glaciers, snow and ice during recent flights over Alaska, the Beaufort Sea and the Sierra Nevada.
A versatile NASA airborne imaging radar system is showcasing its broad scientific prowess for studying our home planet during a month-long expedition over the Americas.
The Unmanned Air Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) is a project jointly developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in which a synthetic aperture radar is being flight-validated on a Gulfstream C-20A (GIII) in a specially designed pod that will be interoperable with manned and unmanned aircraft. The modified C-20A provides a platform to not only test and evaluate the new radar, but can also be used to gather scientific data for multiple geophysical studies.