2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

Three contracts have been awarded to
address the modification, which is divided into
work units comprising the airframe, landing
gear, and superpod adaptation.
The addition of the superpod capability will
enable the Airborne Science Program to
fly selected payloads on either the ER-2 or
WB-57 aircraft with no modification. The
increased gross weight provides increased
payload carrying capability, and increased fuel
capacity in a variety of aircraft configurations.
Aircraft range and endurance penalties
due to payload weight will be reduced or
eliminated for all configurations.
The major NASA science mission for the
WB-57 in FY08 was the NOVICE (Newly
Operational and Validated Instrument
Comparison Experiment) mission. Although
the mission was a success, there were a few
weather-related mission planning challenges.
Delaying the arrival of the science teams was
considered, as Hurricane Gustav’s predicted
path included Houston, and the WB-57 was
scheduled for evacuation. Luckily, Gustav
steered further east and the WB-57 was not
relocated.
One test flight and two mission flights
were flown, for a total of 11.4 flight hours.
There was hope of flying a fourth flight, but
Hurricane Ike had Houston in its sights. Late
in the afternoon after the last NOVICE
flight, the WB-57 was evacuated to El Paso.
The Johnson Space Center was scheduled
for closure the following day at noon, with
much of the local area under a mandatory
evacuation order. The science teams, with the
help of ESPO, worked diligently to ship out
their instruments and support equipment so
they could escape the path of the hurricane
as well.
Operations in FY08 were heavily weighted
towards non-NASA projects. A total of
461 hours were flown supporting systems
development and field demonstration tests
for independent corporations and other
government agencies. These operations were
conducted during several U.S. deployments,
plus two major deployments outside the
United States. The non-NASA flight activity
has provided income and operations
experience that keeps the WB-57 program
robust, viable, and prepared for Airborne
Science campaigns.
Finally, an additional 63.5 flight hours were
consumed by crew training, functional check
flights (FCF) after aircraft maintenance,
landing gear test flights, and hurricane
evacuation flights. The total flight hours for
both aircraft in FY08 was 536 flight hours.
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