Thursday, November 21 When they told us to dress in layers for the flight, they weren’t kidding. At altitude, the C-5 transporting the Global Precipitation Measurement satellite is cold. After waking up from my exhausted sleep that passed the first five hours, my feet were blocks of ice from the draft along the floor. I […]
At 4:30 a.m., Nov. 21, a knock came at the door of the Goddard bus from one of our Air Force escorts at Andrews Air Force Base, outside of Washington, D.C. It was time to board the Super Galaxy C5 cargo plane. The NASA team of 24 slowly woke up from the naps most of […]
One of the keys to IceBridge’s success is effective communication between every member of the team. But keeping in touch in the remote locales IceBridge operates from can sometimes be tricky. On plane there’s the intercom system routing through headsets and the radios and Iridium satellite communication devices aboard the P-3 allow the plane to […]
Notes written on the side of the GPM shipping container. Credit: NASA/Ellen Gray “To: Japan, Love: GSFC.” So says a note, written in black marker on the outside of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) shipping container. This is at least the fourth satellite that has been transported in this particular container. Stenciled officially on […]
Before the first survey flight of an IceBridge field campaign can get under way a lot of things have to happen. Instruments have to be installed on the plane, researchers need to get into the field and ground stations need to be set up. IceBridge’s McMurdo-based Antarctic campaign is the result of a year and […]
Right now if you want to take a look at the Global Precipitation Measurement mission’s Core Observatory, you can’t. As of last weekend, it’s sealed up inside a giant white shipping container, all prepped for its long journey to Japan where it will launch in early 2014. This isn’t your typical satellite delivery. As Project […]
In early September, I drove down to Wallops Flight Facility to set up our GPS base station in preparation for the test flight. The test flight is to verify that everything is working as expected, and to do some calibration, since the C-130 is a new platform for the Land, Vegetation, and Ice Sensor (LVIS). LVIS […]
Editor’s note: In fall 2013, researchers aboard a NASA C-130 traveled to Greenland to study changes in the ice sheet and sea ice following the summer melt season. Other airborne campaigns, like NASA’s Operation IceBridge, study changes on an annual basis and this is the first large-scale airborne survey of seasonal change. The C-130, equipped […]
A successful field campaign collecting meteorological and hydrological data almost always involves a forecasting element. A detailed high quality forecast briefing on the potential evolution of weather events allows the scientists behind the scenes and out in the field to make crucial decisions that ultimately may determine the success of a project. While many joke […]
