2009 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

Decadal Survey
Support Missions
Since the National Research Council published
its Decadal Survey report, “Earth Science and
Applications from Space: National Imperatives for
the Next Decade and Beyond” in 2007, NASA’s
Science Mission Directorate has established science
teams and is in the process of implementing these
15 new missions. The Airborne Science program
has been working in parallel to support the Decadal
Survey missions by flying instrument simulators and
algorithm development experiments, and preparing
to fly calibration and validation missions. The
Program has also established relationships with the
science teams to understand their upcoming needs
and assist in planning through use of the flight
request system and 5-year planning process.
In late FY08 and into early FY09, ASP flew PALS
on the P-3 in support of Soil Moisture Active-
Passive (SMAP). This will be the first of Decadal
Survey missions to launch and additional fieldwork is
anticipated. The Aerosol-Cloud-Ecosystems (ACE)
mission will also make significant use of ASP assets
beginning in 2010.
The ICESatII mission is being supported by
Operation ICE Bridge.
Specific campaigns in FY09 in support of
Deformation, Ecosystem Structure and Dynamics
of Ice (DESDynI) and Active Sensing of CO 2
Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons
(ASCENDS) are discussed in detail below.
The IPY experiment flying an experimental Ka-band
SAR on the G-III (described in the IPY section) also
supported the Surface Water/Ocean Topography
(SWOT) mission by flying a payload comparable to
a simulator instrument that will be flying in the near
future.
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