News

A NASA ER-2 Earth science aircraft has arrived in Keflavik, Iceland, to begin a series of flights to confirm the accuracy of a new laser altimeter.

NASA’s Operation IceBridge and the European Space Agency’s CryoVEx campaign coordinated flights of two aircraft from different locations over the Arctic Ocean on a track flown shortly before by ESA’s CryoSat-2 spacecraft.

A NASA ER-2 Earth Resources aircraft will fly a number of high-altitude missions this spring to validate the accuracy of a new laser altimeter.

Researchers and flight crew with NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne mission to study changes in polar ice, begin the 2012 Arctic campaign.

Researchers will probe the Southeast Asian atmosphere at a time when weather systems and air pollution pump chemicals and particles high into the air.

Technicians at NASA Dryden recently installed a synthetic aperture radar on a Johnson Space Center Gulfstream III for planned Earth science mission.

NASA's DC-8 airborne science laboratory completes six-week Global Cold-season Precipitation Experiment mission, returns to Palmdale base.

NASA's Airborne Science Program operates highly specialized aircraft that will be deployed all over the world in 2012 for Earth science missions.

A Snow Video Imager near a Canadian research station in Egbert, Ontario, captured these falling snowflakes as part of NASA's GCPEx mission.

NASA’s G-III research aircraft has completed a week-long airborne radar study to aid understanding of processes occurring under the Kilauea volcano.

Beginning Jan. 17, NASA will fly an airborne science laboratory above Canadian snowstorms to tackle a difficult challenge facing the upcoming Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite mission -- measuring snowfall from space.

NASA’s G-III research aircraft returns to Hawaii for a week-long UAVSAR study to aid understanding of processes occurring under the Kilauea volcano.

Sensors on three NASA science aircraft recorded data on water fluctuation between soil and the atmosphere over California's San Joaquin Valley.

NASA photographer Tom Tschida gets some unusual perspectives on the high-flying Earth science aircraft as it is disassembled for major maintenance.

NASA researchers have demonstrated the use of an unmanned aerial vehicle to collect very low altitude airborne measurements of greenhouse gases.

NASA's DC-8 airborne science laboratory has returned to the United States after completing its Fall 2011 Operation IceBridge campaign over Antarctica.

Multi-year NASA Airborne Science Program campaign to study the humidity and chemical composition of the tropical tropopause over the Pacific Ocean in 2013-2014.

Thanks to good weather, NASA's DC-8 flying lab and NCAR's G-V are maintaining a high flight rate during Fall 2011 Operation IceBridge campaign.

Scientists with NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne research campaign began the mission's third year of surveys over the changing ice of Antarctica.

A group of environmental scientists are preparing for a multi-year NASA Airborne Science Program investigation of Atlantic hurricane formation and intensity.

Scientists conducted airborne validation of four laser techniques for measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide aboard NASA’s DC-8 flying lab.

About 40 % of Americans live in counties where pollution levels still regularly exceed EPA's national air quality standards. Summer heat and relentless traffic make the D.C. metropolitan area one of the top 20 smoggiest metro areas in the country.

The Mid-latitude Airborne Cirrus Properties Experiment (MACPEX) is a NASA field campaign that is investigating cirrus cloud properties and the processes that affect their impact on solar radiation. The campaign is using project management services provided by the Earth Science Project Office (ESPO) at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., which supports NASA’s Science Mission Directorate field research.

Scientists from NASA and other organizations are on a mission to unlock the mysteries of why certain clouds produce copious amounts of rain. In a field mission that is now under way, aircraft are carrying instruments above and into rain clouds. Meanwhile scientists are also getting rainfall measurements on the ground.
This field campaign provides the most comprehensive observations of rainfall in the U.S. through the use of aircraft, spacecraft, remote sensing and ground sensors.

The Mid-latitude Airborne Cirrus Properties Experiment (MACPEX) is a NASA field campaign that is investigating cirrus cloud properties and the processes that affect their impact on solar radiation. The campaign uses NASA's WB-57 research aircraft based at Ellington, Texas, to conduct science flights over Oklahoma, the southeastern United States and the Gulf of Mexico this month.

Research pilot William Rieke from NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, has flown more than 3,500 hours in numerous aircraft, including the F/A 18 Hornet strike fighter when he was in the United States Navy. Since then, Rieke has been a flight engineer on Boeing 727's and 737-200's for a major airline. As a pilot for NASA since 2004, he has flown the NorthropT-38N Talon jet, the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, which NASA uses to transport Space Shuttle orbiters, and the WB-57.

Kangerlussuaq, Greenland – Operation IceBridge, NASA's airborne mission to monitor polar ice, is amid its fourth week of flights for the Arctic 2011 campaign. Researchers and crew successfully completed flights from Thule, Greenland, to monitor sea ice and have now moved to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland to focus on flights monitoring the ice sheet.

Flying a distance of about 19,000 miles [30,000 kilometers] over the Arctic Ocean, scientists onboard the P-3 collected data during eight sea ice flights based from Thule Air Base. One additional sea ice flight remains to be flown from Kangerlussuaq.

NASA’s Global Hawk No. 872 soars aloft on a functional check flight of the aircraft payload system and science instruments for the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) mission in August 2010. (NASA photo / Tony Landis) This week marks the first anniversary of the NASA Global Hawk project’s initial science mission. On April 7, 2010, Global Hawk No. 872 took off from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for its first science foray over the Pacific Ocean in the Global Hawk Pacific 2010 - or GloPac - science campaign.

NASA recently performed emissions testing on alternative, renewable fuels for a greener and less petroleum-dependent future. The search for alternative fuels is driven by environmental concerns as well as a desire for reduced reliance on foreign sources.

Scientists returned this week to the Southern Hemisphere where NASA's Operation IceBridge mission is set to begin its second year of airborne surveys over Antarctica.