Today was another interesting day here at MacDill. Our WB-57 took off around 11:16 EDT for Hurricane Gonzalo. During the science flight, Gonzalo’s maximum sustained winds were 145 mph as it continued on its track towards Bermuda. During the ~6 hour mission we were able to cross over the eye three times. Based on satellite imagery, it […]
Science Flights over Hurricane Gonzalo Begin
HS3 UAV flights officially ended a couple of weeks ago, but there has been a successful extension of the HS3 mission through a new NASA/Navy collaboration. Two instruments from HS3 that didn’t get to fly this hurricane season due to aircraft issues, HIRad and HIWRAP, are now loaded onto a manned WB-57 and will be […]
More Flying with ARISE
Editor’s note: The following is a first-hand account of ARISE survey flights by one of the mission’s researchers. To see the first two days’ accounts, visit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/fromthefield/2014/09/17/flying-with-arise/ Day 3 (Sept. 16, 2014) Today was a long flight day. It started off by trying to guess where the high clouds (i.e. cirrus) will move in. We […]
Aerosols around Hurricane Edouard
Most of the North American population probably wasn’t paying much attention, but the largest Atlantic storm since SANDY safely passed by the mainland well East of Bermuda in Mid-September. Edouard reached ‘Major Hurricane’ status as a category-3 storm on 9/16 and weakened over colder waters several days later. Below is a track for Edouard, compared […]
Picturing Sea Ice with ARISE’s Digital Camera Instrument
Flying above, below and through clouds in the Arctic gives the ARISE C-130 a different perspective on the world below. Nowhere is this more apparent than through the lenses of ARISE’s digital camera instrument. This instrument – one of many ARISE uses – captures views of clouds, ocean and ice that are both scenic and […]
Bringing It All Together: Planning ARISE
Eielson Air Force Base, Fairbanks, Alaska, day 9 of our deployment: We are currently sitting together in our mission support and flight planning room, next to the Thunderdome Hangar on base. We have appropriately named this room, where we dedicate up to 10 hours each day, our WAR room – where we passionately discuss which […]
Flying With ARISE
Editor’s note: The following is a first-hand account of ARISE survey flights by one of the mission’s researchers. Day 1 (Sep-11-2014) My first ARISE day started early in the morning after a late arrival into Fairbanks on the night before. This important mission’s goal is to map the sea ice and understand the relation between […]
Fare Thee Well AV-1: Making Things Work in the Midst of Technical Difficulties
Since I last posted, HS3 has decided to give up on trying to fix AV-1, thus ending my time at NASA Wallops this hurricane season. We came to this decision so we would still have some time to get two of the instruments, including the one I work with, off AV-1 and moved onto a […]
May the 4STAR Be With You
The Spectrometer for Sky-Scanning, Sun-Tracking Atmospheric Research, or 4STAR, is an airborne instrument that measures aerosols (small particles suspended in the atmosphere), gases (ozone for example), and a variety of cloud properties. Currently it is being deployed on the NASA C-130 aircraft on its quest to measure aerosol and cloud properties in the Arctic, helping to […]