2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

• Arctic Research of the Composition
of the Troposphere from Aircraft and
Satellite (ARCTAS I) to Pt. Barrow and
Fairbanks, Alaska with HSRL.
• ARCTAS II deployment to Yellowknife,
Canada with HSRL and RSP.
• B-200 deployment to Birmingham,
Alabama for the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) with HSRL and
RSP.
• Initial local research flights on the
UC-12B for Advance CO2 Sensing of
Emissions over Nights, Days and Seasons
(ASCENDS) with the LaRC In situ
Atmospheric Sampling System and the
ITT ACCLAIM instrument.
For the EPA mission mentioned above, the
B-200 flew 11 sorties from September 16-19
and again from October 12-16, 2008. The
EPA was conducting an intensive air quality
experiment with several ground-based
instruments distributed around the city of
Birmingham. The objective of the mission
was to acquire vertically-resolved profiles
of aerosol optical properties with the LaRC
High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) over
EPA ground sites, and upwind and downwind
of those sites, to better assess transport
into and out of the region, provide a greater
spatial context for the ground-based
measurements, and determine the degree to
which the ground-based instruments capture
the aerosol loading in the column. Overall,
11 flights were conducted for a total of 34
flight hours. The mission was considered a
success by the EPA, and similar collaborations
between NASA and the EPA are being
planned for the future.
Anticipated activities for FY09 include
CALIPSO validation flights across a wide
range of latitudes, ASCENDS development
flights, MASTER and LVIS integrations, and
possible further EPA missions.
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