News
It's Alive! Ames Engineers Harvest and Print Parts for New Breed of Aircraft
It's more an engineer's dream than nightmare - to rapidly prototype and redesign aircraft using 3-D printed parts. That's just what a team of student interns and engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, got to do: custom-build aircraft by repurposing surplus Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Grafting fuselages side-by-side adds more motors, propellers and batteries to improve power and performance capacity. By lengthening the wings, the team was able to improve aerodynamic efficiency and help extend the flight time of small, lightweight electric aircraft.
NASA Begins Sixth Year of Airborne Antarctic Ice Change Study
NASA is carrying out its sixth consecutive year of Operation IceBridge research flights over Antarctica to study changes in the continent’s ice sheet, glaciers and sea ice. This year’s airborne campaign, which began its first flight Thursday morning, will revisit a section of the Antarctic ice sheet that recently was found to be in irreversible decline.
ARISE Researchers Close out Alaska Field Campaign
Data from ARISE will help scientists understand the relationship between ocean and ice surfaces and clouds and the role that relationship plays in the overall climate system. In addition, ARISE data will help researchers further improve methods of interpreting satellite data in the Arctic.
Preparing For Antarctic Flights in the California Desert
NASA IceBridge scientists conduct GPS-guided ground tests at El Mirage to aid calibration of laser altimeter for precise readings over Antarctica.
Global Hawk 872 Return Marks 100th NASA Flight
High-altitude science aircraft hits milestone on its return to NASA Armstrong Sept. 30 after 10 science flights in NASA's 2014 HS3 mission.
NASA's HS3 Looks Hurricane Edouard in the Eye
Scientists on NASA's HS3 mission got lucky on September 17 when the remotely piloted Global Hawk dropped a sonde that fell in Hurricane Eduoard's eye and spun all the way down to the surface
NASA Langley Science Team ‘Delighted’ with Early SABOR Data
A team of researchers from NASA's Langley Research Center recently spent almost three weeks testing the waters — literally — from an airplane as part of a collaborative field campaign called Ship-Aircraft Bio-Optical Research, or SABOR.
NASA ER-2 Captures Image of King Fire in Sierras
MASTER spectrometer image overlaid on a Google Earth photo graphically depicts the fire's boundaries in the visible through thermal infrared spectrum.
HS3 Mission Time-lapse Video Highlights Storms
NASA released a time-lapse video that highlights three different cameras aboard NASA's remotely piloted Global Hawk aircraft No. 872 as it investigated two tropical systems in the Atlantic Ocean in early September 2014.
NASA HS3 Instrument Views 2 Dimensions of Clouds
NASA’s Cloud Physics Lidar instrument is studying the changing profile of the atmosphere to learn more about how hurricanes form and strengthen.
NASA Airborne Campaigns Focus on Climate Impacts in the Arctic
Over the past few decades, average global temperatures have been on the rise, and this warming is happening two to three times faster in the Arctic.
NASA Research Aids Response to California Napa Quake
NASA data and expertise are proving invaluable in California’s ongoing response to the Aug. 24 magnitude 6.0 earthquake in Napa Valley, northeast of San Francisco.
NASA's HS3 Mission Investigates Tropical Storm Dolly
One of NASA's unmanned Global Hawk aircraft number 872 surveyed Tropical Storm Dolly as part of NASA's latest hurricane airborne mission known as the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel, or HS3 mission.
NASA Radar System Surveys Napa Valley Quake Area
Sophisticated JPL airborne radar system scans earthquake fault displacements in Northern California's Napa Valley after major quake Aug. 24.
Hurricane Mission Begins with Global Hawk Flight to Cristobal
The first of two unmanned Global Hawk aircraft landed at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, on Aug. 27 after surveying Hurricane Cristobal for the first science flight of NASA's latest hurricane airborne mission.
NASA to Investigate Climate Impacts of Arctic Sea Ice Loss
A new NASA field campaign will begin flights over the Arctic this summer to study the effect of sea ice retreat on Arctic climate. The Arctic Radiation IceBridge Sea and Ice Experiment (ARISE) will conduct research flights Aug. 28 through Oct. 1, covering the peak of summer sea ice melt.
ASCENDS Scientists Test New Technologies in California Skies
Scientists from NASA's Langley Research Center are in California testing new methods for measuring carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere.
Three Radars are Better than One: Field Campaign Demonstrates Two New Instruments
Never before had NASA flown more than two radar systems, tuned to different frequencies, to measure rainfall from a research aircraft.
Looking at Snow Depth with NASA Airborne Data
New research using data from NASA's Operation IceBridge shows that snow depth on Arctic sea ice has been decreasing over the past several decades, a trend largely owing to later sea ice freeze-up dates in the Arctic.
From Pole to Pole, NASA Flying Laboratories Study Our World
NASA will fly a series of airborne research campaigns to take a closer look at U.S. air quality, hurricanes forming in the Atlantic, and the impact of climate change on Earth’s polar regions.
Melt Ponds Shine in NASA Laser Altimeter Flight Images
Even from 65,000 feet above Earth, aquamarine melt ponds in the Arctic stand out against the white ice sheets and sea ice.
A Pilot’s Life at 65,000 Feet over Alaska
Valerie Casasanto blogs about NASA Armstrong pilots Denis Steele and Tim Williams flying the ER-2 over Alaska while confined in a bulky pressure suit.
NASA's HS3 Mission Spotlight: The HIRAD Instrument
The Hurricane Imaging Radiometer, known as HIRAD, will fly aboard one of two unmanned Global Hawk aircraft during NASA's Hurricane Severe Storm Sentinel or HS3 mission from Wallops beginning August 26 through September 29.
NASA Field Campaign to Probe Ocean Ecology, Carbon Cycle
NASA embarks on a coordinated ship and aircraft observation campaign off the Atlantic coast of the United States, an effort to advance space-based capabilities for monitoring microscopic plants that form the base of the marine food chain.
High-Flying Laser Altimeter to Check Out Summer Sea Ice and More
NASA’s high-flying laser altimeter begins a campaign to investigate differences between summer and winter sea ice.
College Students Study Earth From NASA's DC-8 Flying Lab
Thirty-two undergraduate students are immersed in NASA's Earth Science research during the 2014 Student Airborne Research Program.
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.
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.
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.