News
Major NASA Air Pollution Study to Fly Over Houston
A multi-year airborne science mission is on its way to Texas to help scientists better understand how to measure and forecast air quality from space.
Change of Venue for NASA's IceBridge Antarctic Operations
For the first time ever, NASA's Operation IceBridge will fly scientific surveys out of McMurdo Station, Antarctica.
Learning by Doing: NASA's Airborne Research Experience for Educators
A dozen teachers from across the country came to Southern California for a 10-day Airborne Research Experience for Educators workshop at NASA Dryden.
Search On for Climate Clues Across Southern U.S. Skies
NASA research aircraft began flights Aug. 12 from Houston's Ellington Field to investigate how the combination of summer storms and rising air pollution from wildfires, cities, and other sources can change our climate. Hoping to improve future predictions of climate change, scientists in the NASA study are using the skies over much of the southern United States as a natural laboratory this month and into September.
Seeing Which Way the Wind Blows
A new Doppler radar takes flight on this summer's HS3 mission.
Airborne Campaign Preparing to Probe Pollution-Climate Link
An eclectic assortment of sensors are installed on NASA's DC-8 and ER-2 aircraft to study how air pollution and natural emissions affect climate change.
Unmanned NASA Aircraft Crashes During Science Mission
NASA is investigating the loss of a small unpiloted aircraft over the Arctic Ocean Friday, July 26, while it conducted research on sea ice. The Sensor Integrated Environmental Remote Research Aircraft (SIERRA) was about four hours into a planned six-hour flight when it experienced a problem that caused it to lose altitude and crash in the ocean. The incident occurred at 6:15 p.m. AKDT (10:15 p.m. EDT).
The flight originated from Oliktok Point, off the northern coast of Alaska. The crash site is extremely remote, about 40 miles farther north in the Beaufort Sea. No one on the ground was injured. Environmental impacts at the crash site are expected to be minimal because of the aircraft’s small size. At the time, SIERRA had less than six gallons of fuel and oil aboard. A mishap investigation is underway.
The aircraft was one of three unmanned aerial vehicles taking part in a science experiment called the Marginal Ice Zone Observations and Processes Experiment (MIZOPEX). Mission objectives were to probe the ocean's role in recent declines in Arctic sea ice using a sophisticated set of radars and other instruments.
SIERRA was a medium-class, unmanned aircraft system with a wingspan of 20 feet and a weight of 400 pounds. It was designed to perform remote sensing and atmospheric sampling missions in isolated and often inaccessible regions, such as over mountain ranges, the open ocean, or the Arctic and Antarctic regions. NASA acquired SIERRA from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in 2006 and conducted its first mission surveying sea ice off the coast of Svalbard, Norway, in 2009. The vehicle was valued at $250,000.
For more information about SIERRA, visit:
http://airbornescience.nasa.gov/aircraft/SIERRA
For more information about the MIZOPEX mission, visit:
http://ccar.colorado.edu/mizopex/index.html
Ruth Marlaire
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-4709
J.D. Harrington
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-5241
NASA's Student Airborne Research Program: Learning by Doing
32 college students in the 2013 Student Airborne Research Program were involved in every aspect of a NASA science mission over California.
Antarctic Glacier Calves Iceberg One-Fourth Size of Rhode Island
This week a European Earth-observing satellite confirmed that a large iceberg broke off of Pine Island Glacier, one of Antarctica's largest and fastest moving ice streams. The rift that led to the new iceberg was discovered in October 2011 during NASA's Operation IceBridge flights over the continent.
NASA's DC-8 Flight Helps Validate New Technologies
Flying laboratory carries several instruments testing new technologies that could aid Earth science missions, GPS accuracy and aviation safety.
NASA's 2013 HS3 Mission to Delve into Saharan Dust
NASA's 2013 HS3 mission will investigate whether Saharan dust and its associated warm and dry air, known as the Saharan Air Layer favors or suppresses the development of tropical cyclones.
College Students Study The Earth From NASA's DC-8 Flying Lab
College students in NASA's Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) will measure pollution and air quality, study forest ecology and ocean biology around California.
NASA SEAC4RS Mission Targets How Pollution, Storms And Climate Mix
NASA's DC-8 and ER-2 science aircraft will take to the skies over the southern United States this summer to investigate how air pollution and natural emissions, which are pushed high into the atmosphere by large storms, affect atmospheric composition and climate.
California Powerhouse Fire Image from NASA ER-2
The MASTER instrument on NASA's ER-2 high-altitude science aircraft captured this infrared image of the Powerhouse wildfire in the Angeles Forest near Lake Hughes, Calif., during a nighttime flight May 31-June 1.
IceBridge Contributes to New Map of Antarctica
The new map's improved precision will lead to better calculations of Antarctic ice volume and its potential contribution to sea level rise.
NASA’s HS3 Mission Aircraft to Double Team 2013 Hurricane Season
NASA's HS3 airborne mission will revisit the Atlantic Ocean to investigate storms using additional instruments and for the first time two Global Hawks.
HS3 Mission May Target Cape Verde Island Hurricanes in 2013
NASA's multi-year Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel, or HS3, mission may explore tropical cyclones of Cape Verde origins when it takes to the skies again this August.
NASA, Northrop Grumman Continue Partnership For Science
NASA and Northrop Grumman extend a no-cost agreement enabling NASA to continue Earth science research with the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system.
Science Teachers See NASA IceBridge Research
NASA's Operation IceBridge hosted three science teachers during their recent Arctic field campaign, giving these educators a first-hand polar science experience that they could use to teach and inspire their students.
NASA IceBridge Returns Home
The IceBridge team has returned from the Arctic and have started processing collected data and planning for the Antarctic campaign coming up later this year.
NASA Opens New Era in Measuring Western U.S. Snowpack
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.
NASA Radar Collects GLISTIN Ice and Glacier Data
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.
NASA's IceBridge Finishing Up Successful Arctic Campaign
With several weeks of science flights in the books, researchers with NASA's Operation IceBridge are on the way to completing another successful campaign to maintain and expand a dataset that started with NASA's ICESat in 2003, and gather additional Arctic ice measurements that can improve computer models of sea and land ice.
Lights, Camera, ACCESS
At NASA's Langley hangar, Bruce Anderson, project scientist for the ACCESS (Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise Emissions) experiment, stood in between NASA's HU-25C airplane and a group of media visitors armed with cameras, notepads, and smartphones as he explained the recently completed series of flights.
NASA's HyspIRI Imager: More Than Meets the Eye
Prior to flying the Hyperspectral Infrared Imager in space, preparatory science investigations are underway using a similar sensor on NASA's ER-2.
Media Invited to View Wildfire Sensor On US Forest Service Jet
Media are invited to view the USFS jet on the tarmac in front of the Moffett Tower and talk to USFS, NASA and CALFIRE personnel.
Operation IceBridge Continues Arctic Flights
IceBridge closed out the fourth week of its Arctic campaign with a flight over the striking landscape of eastern Greenland's Geikie Peninsula and a survey of a Canadian ice cap.
NASA Imaging Sensor Prepares for Western Wildfire Season
NASA-developed wildfire imaging sensor has begun test flights onboard a USFS aircraft in preparation for this year's wildfire season.
NASA Flies Radar South on Wide-Ranging Expedition
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.
NASA Flies Dragon Eye Unmanned Aircraft Into Volcanic Plume
NASA Earth science researchers recently traveled to Turrialba Volcano, near San Jose, Costa Rica to study its chemical environment.