2009 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

Media, Education
and Outreach
NSERC
The National Suborbital Education and Research
Center – a cooperative agreement between NASA
and the University of North Dakota – provides
education and public outreach support to the
Airborne Science Program. Educational support
includes student research opportunities and public
outreach support includes mission-related outreach,
exhibits at conferences, engaging the public through
social networking outlets and connecting with
national media outlets.
The 2009 Student Airborne Research Program
they participated in a series of introductory lectures
by project advisors and NASA program managers
at the UC Irvine campus. The third week was spent
in Palmdale, CA where students were given more
lectures on mission planning. While in Palmdale,
students also participated in two science flights on
the DC-8 where they collected all their data. Field
campaigns were also organized to coincide with
over flights and students were able to participate
in these as well. The fourth and fifth weeks were
spent back at UC Irvine where students analyzed
A major contribution to the ASP education activities
was the implementation of the first Student
Airborne Research Program (SARP). This program
took place during July-August 2009 and included 29
competitively selected undergraduate and graduate
Earth system science and engineering students
representing 26 schools from across the U.S. The
objective of the program was to give these students
access to Earth science research using the NASA
DC-8 research platform. The students engaged
in three experiments: 1) in-situ atmospheric gas
sampling using the Whole Air Sampler, 2) remote
sensing of evapo-transpiration processes using
the MASTER instrument, and 3) remote sensing
of physical ocean processes using the MASTER
instrument. The flights took place over California’s
Central Valley for the gas sampling and evapotranspiration
experiments, and over Monterey Bay
for the oceanography experiment.
The program was six weeks and started off with a
week of teleconferences to discuss science topics
with the students, introduce them to faculty and
provide logistical information. The following week
the students and faculty arrived in Irvine, CA where
Figures 67:
NSERC 2009 students.
101