NASA launched a new mission to study the effects of global warming yesterday, using the WB-57 high altitude aircraft.
The NASA WB-57 took off from Juan Santamaría international airport near Alajuela, Costa Rica on Thursday, 19 January on the first of 12 missions to study the growing hole in the ozone level above the Equator. NASA scientists say the aircraft's latest mission is an "innovative study" on climate change by flying the WB-57 in the high troposphere.
The Costa-Rica Aura Validation Experiment will explore the boundary between the troposphere and the lower stratosphere, which start in the Tropics at altitudes around 39,600ft (12,000m). The high tropical troposphere is believed to have suffered the largest impact from climate change, NASA says. The agency will use data on the ozone hole collected by NASA's Aura satellite, launched in July last year.
The flights, part of a $8 million 2-year study based at San José airport, will run until 12 February.
The NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas is the home of the NASA WB-57 High Altitude Research Programme. Two fully operational WB-57 aircraft, based on the Martin Marietta B-57 bomber, are based near JSC at Ellington Field and have been flying research missions since the early 1960s (pictured below).
The mission was officially launched by US ambassador to Costa Rica Mark Langdale and Costa Rica's science minister Fernando Gutierrez.
Source: Flight International
