2009 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

ASCENDS
Science Focus:
HQ Sponsor:
PIs:
Atmospheric Composition and Chemistry
Jucks
Abshire, Browell, Spiers
One major near-term requirement for the Active
Sensing of CO 2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and
Seasons (ASCENDS) mission is to select a method
and payload to measure CO 2 . To that end, NASA
had an outstandingly successful set of coordinated
CO 2 laser flights over the DOE Atmospheric
Radiation Measurement (ARM) Central Facility
(CF) between 31 July and 7 August 2009. Four
coordinated flights were made in Oklahoma with
the NASA Langley UC-12, NASA Glenn Lear-25,
Twin Otter International’s Twin Otter, and the DOE
Cessna covering altitudes from near the surface to 40-
kft altitude. DOE in situ CO 2 point measurements
were made on the tower at the ARM CF, and DOE
radiosondes were launched to determine atmospheric
state variables for each coordinated flight. The
coordination between NASA, DOE, Vance AFB,
and FAA for all operations was exceptional and
enabled all flights to be conducted as planned. Two
additional flights were conducted from NASA
Langley with the Glenn Lear and Langley UC-12.
All lasers and in situ sampling systems worked well
during the field campaigns. All in situ data sets,
including those from the UC-12, have been collected
and distributed to all of the laser system teams for
their comparison to the remotely derived CO 2 laser
measurements. Results from these comparisons are
expected to be available in early 2010.
Figure 11:
NASA Langley UC-12B aircraft awaits take off clearance as the Glenn Lear 25
takes off during joint operations in Ponca City, Oklahoma, in August 2009.
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