NASA's airborne science fleet has begun flying its 1998 programme at the Dryden flight centre at Edwards AFB, California, after being modified at the Ames Research Centre, California.
Two Lockheed Martin ER-2s began flights from Dryden in January, while a modified McDonnell Douglas DC-8-72 is due to rejoin the airborne science programme in April. The DC-8 is being fitted with an advanced synthetic aperture radar as part of sensor development experiments for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The test programme will involve data gathering flights from USAF bases in Colorado, Texas, and Washington. In May the DC-8 will be prepared for the convection and moisture experiment, which will mainly be flown from bases in Colorado and Florida.
The first Dryden-based ER-2 mission was undertaken for the Johnson Space Center, Texas, and included the collection of "cosmic dust", (high altitude particulate matter), on two collector instruments mounted under the wings.
The second ER-2 followed this with a mission to test an experimental atmospheric thermal radiometer developed by the Anderson Group at Harvard University, Massachusetts. The radiometer is an improved version of the units used on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites, and is designed to improve weather prediction capability.
Source: Flight International