2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

The Airborne Science and Technology
Laboratory at NASA Ames is an element of the
Airborne Science Program, and is responsible
for the development and operation of facility
instrumentation and ancillary systems for
community use by NASA investigators. It
also provides engineering support for the
integration of new science instrumentation
onto the NASA aircraft. The facility instrument
systems managed by ASTL include the MODIS
and ASTER Airborne Simulators (MAS and
MASTER,) the Autonomous Modular Sensor
(AMS) for UAS platforms, and various
tracking cameras and navigation systems for
mission documentation.
This group is also leading the development
of next-generation of airborne science
data networks for the program, and the
associated internet-based “sensor web”
environment, to increase the measurement
potential of the various platforms. In
addition, the lab operates a state-of-theart
infrared instrument calibration facility,
Figure 42
Data flow and flight hardware components for the future standard airborne
data systems (Global Hawk-specific subsystems to the right).
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