2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

NASA
DC-8
In November 2007, the NASA DC-8
aircraft moved to the Dryden Aircraft
Operations Facility (DAOF) located in
Palmdale, California where its new base
of operations was established (see page
103). The National Suborbital Education and
Research Center (NSERC) at the University
of North Dakota, under cooperative
agreement with NASA, continues to promote
and support science operations using the
DC-8 Airborne Science Laboratory and
has established its presence at the DAOF
where it supports instrument integration and
mission management activities.
The NASA DC-8 aircraft flew a total of
292 science flight hours during FY08 in
support of the ARCTAS, CARB, AMISA,
and ATV-1 missions. The aircraft remained
reliable throughout the year, successfully
accomplishing all planned missions described
in other sections of this document.
Technology improvements to the aircraft
also continued throughout FY08. Aircraft
facilities and hardware upgrades on the DC-8
included:
Installation of a new AIMMS-20 high rate
position and attitude system from Aventech
Research. The system is capable of 40 Hz
pitch and roll and 20 Hz position data good
to 1.2 meters. The data is recorded to the
on board network servers and backed up on
a system data module.
A dependable four channel Iridium multilink
system designed by NSERC and ASTL staff
was installed prior to the CARB flights in June
2008. The four channel system is capable
of 9600 baud communications and provides
Xchat services. Examples of in-flight data
transfers are upload of GOES weather
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