2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program
2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program
2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
opportunity in the fall has helped prepare for<br />
HYSPIRI algorithm-development flights, to be<br />
teamed again with MASTER flights planned<br />
for 2009.<br />
Laser Vegetation Imaging Sensor (LVIS)<br />
The Laser Vegetation Imaging Sensor (LVIS)<br />
payload package flew approximately 36 hours<br />
on a B-200 in New Mexico, Nevada, and<br />
California in <strong>2008</strong> in preparation for support<br />
of the upcoming DESDynI mission. The<br />
LVIS team also used this flight opportunity<br />
to demonstrate a new 10-bit, high-speed<br />
waveform digitizer that is being investigated<br />
for use on the DESDynI Lidar, perform an<br />
atmospheric delay experiment, and to collect<br />
data along GLAS tracks and Long Valley<br />
Caldera.<br />
Full-waveform, 25 m footprint lidar data was<br />
collected over a variety of vegetation cover<br />
types and topographic slopes to determine<br />
the impact of off-nadir pointing on measuring<br />
vegetation canopy heights and vertical<br />
structure with a lidar. Under the currently<br />
planned design, the DESDynI mission consists<br />
of a multi-beam, 25 m footprint lidar and an<br />
Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar<br />
(InSAR). If both instruments are flown on<br />
the same spacecraft platform and in a short<br />
repeat orbit, the lidar will need to point offnadir<br />
by up to 16 degrees to achieve global<br />
coverage at the required spatial resolution.<br />
The data from this flight series is still being<br />
analyzed. If this experiment, data, and the<br />
associated modeling efforts determine that<br />
the scientific impact of off-nadir pointing<br />
is too large, then DESDynI will have to be<br />
implemented as two separate spacecraft, one<br />
for the InSAR and one for the lidar.<br />
Advanced Carbon dioxide and Climate LAser<br />
International Mission (ACCLAIM).<br />
The ACCLAIM instrument flew locally on<br />
the LaRC UC-12 (similar to the LaRC B-200)<br />
on 11 flights between September 23 and<br />
October 30, <strong>2008</strong>. The flight tracks were<br />
over southeastern Virginia and northeastern<br />
North Carolina, and each flight lasted about<br />
three hours (33.8 hours total). ACCLAIM<br />
had also previously flown on the Learjet 25 in<br />
2007.<br />
The purpose of the campaign was to<br />
conduct airborne validation of the remote<br />
measurements of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) with<br />
the ACCLAIM system. In situ measurements<br />
of CO 2 were also made on this aircraft,<br />
and spiral maneuvers were done at the<br />
center of the flight track for comparison<br />
with the remote ACCLAIM CO 2 column<br />
measurements. This is a critical step in the<br />
development and demonstration of the<br />
laser/lidar system that is going to be used for<br />
global measurements of CO 2 as part of the<br />
ASCENDS (Active Sensing of CO 2 Emissions<br />
over Nights, Days, and Seasons) mission.<br />
The results from this flight campaign<br />
demonstrated that the ACCLAIM instrument<br />
can make CO 2 column measurements with<br />
high precision and high accuracy (better than<br />
0.75% or 3 ppm of CO 2 ). These were the<br />
first high quality, remote, laser measurements<br />
of CO 2 made from an airborne platform.<br />
Swath Imaging Multi-polarization Photoncounting<br />
Lidar (SIMPL)<br />
SIMPL was flown on the Glenn Research<br />
Center Learjet 25 in <strong>2008</strong> on an engineering<br />
test flight to test electrical and mechanical<br />
16