2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

ESTO
Technology Demonstrations
In 2008, the Airborne Science program
has teamed with several investigators
funded by the Earth Science Technology
Office (ESTO) to develop instrument
technologies through demonstration
flights on ASP platforms.
These flights include a variety of science
instruments including RADARs, LIDARs,
optical instruments and passive microwave
experiments. By demonstrating these
instruments can operate in an aircraft
environement, increased technology
readiness levels can be demonstrated,
bringing the development one step closer
to being mission ready. Since airborne
experiments must be compact, rugged and
semi-autonomous, this forces the instrument
teams to develop technologies also needed
for the rigors of space operation.
Airborne instruments also supply data
that can be used to design the operating
parameters of space instruments. They are
a vital link in the development of spacebased
instruments by providing actual
measurements of real-world phenomena.
This understanding enables space
instruments to be properly designed and to
optimize data collection parameters.
Airborne demonstration instruments
also have evolved through the Airborne
Instrument Technology Transfer (AITT)
program and other initiatives to the point
where they provide calibrated science data
used for developing science algorithms and
calibration of on-orbit instrument data.
Some of the more significant demonstration
flights conducted this past year include:
GIFS
GIFS (Geostationary Imaging Fabry-
Perot Spectrometer) is a tunable tripleetalon
Fabry-Perot Imaging Spectrometer
developed for cloud characteristics
and surface pressure imaging onboard
geostationary satellites. An engineering
flight conducted in January successfully
demonstrated the GIFS prototype
engineering performance and its spectral
scanning technique on the NASA P-3.
CO 2 Sounder
The NASA Goddard CO 2 Sounder team
successfully conducted airborne engineering
tests of their CO 2 Laser Sounder
instrument in October by making airborne
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