Science Flights & DFRC

Bumpy ride was right! We were flying at 1000 ft for a few hours each morning flight Tuesday and Thursday, and the plane was definitely feeling the mixing layer turbulence.

Ready for takeoff! Dr. Don Blake waves from the back of the plane (bottom right)

In the morning, we first flew at an altitude of 13,000 feet, taking some baseline samples above the boundary layer and practicing filling canisters with the Whole Air Sampler (WAS). That was the smooth part; as soon as we hit the boundary layer at around 6,000 feet, it rocky until almost the end of the flight.

Filling canisters at 13,000 ft

We landed midday to refuel and eat lunch (in the plane), and then started up again to take afternoon measurements. While the air group was filling canisters, the MASTER instrument was chugging away, taking measurements for the land group, who are looking at evapotranspiration of crops, and the ocean group, who are looking at photosynthesis coastal kelp.

Flying over crops to ground-truth for the Land Group

The most exciting part of the flight was the missed approach into LAX. Basically, the plane received clearance, to mock land on a LAX runway, descending down until we were about 100 feet above the ground before pulling up again and ascending over the ocean to do our ocean transects at higher altitudes. During the first flight, I was a little woozy from the anti-motion sickness medication, but on the second flight, the Air Group worked as a well-oiled machine, with everyone taking part to make it a success.

Our own on-flight "Mission Operations Center"

Wednesday was our off day: we toured the Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base.

Besides all of the cool replica planes, we saw where the outside NASA shots of I Dream of Jeannie were filmed -- how many people can say they saw that? 

Touring the hangars, we were able to see the different airplane designs; a lot of them seemed as if some loopy aero-physicist was just experimenting rather than highly trained engineers with specific objectives in mind. 

My favorite part of the tour was exploring one of the two NASA shuttle aircraft carriers--modified 747s whose express purpose is transporting space shuttles to Kennedy Space Center for launch. 

Inside the shuttle aircraft carrier

We also saw one of the NASA Global Hawks, which are unmanned aircraft used for science flights, especially those requiring high altitudes and long durations. 

After our field trip, we headed back to Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility to take yet another tour -- of SOFIA this time.

An overview of how the telescope works

Explaining the mechanics of the telescope

Close-up of the telescope

By the time we got home, we were exhausted--every day for the last three days. Tomorrow we head back to Irvine, and I will be grateful for the long weekend to rest.

Test Flight

Today I earned my wings! We flew for the first time today, taking a short 2 hour flight over the Salton Sea.

The Air Group (courtesy of NSERC: http://www.nserc.und.edu/learning/SARPmm.html?2011)

 Take off!

View from 13,000 ft: Crops and some biomass burning

Console for the MASTER instrument

All in all, a good flight

This was just a test flight; the crew basically made sure the instruments were performing properly while we newbies tried out our "air legs" (and stomachs). We're finally going to start some real work tomorrow, taking air samples and running the MASTER transects. So hang on -- I have a feeling it will be a bumpy ride.

Dryden

These last couple of days at Dryden have been incredible! After our 2-hour van ride to Palmdale yesterday, we checked in at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility Visitor Control Center to get badged.

Our first view of Dryden

Once inside the campus, we toured the hangar, which NASA has leased for the last few years. In the past, the hangar was used for movies such as The Terminal and Pirates of the Caribbean, but now it houses NASA science planes, such as SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) and our own DC-8.

The DC-8 in the hangar -- just imagine it's the Black Pearl

The DC-8

We had the opportunity to see the DC-8 up close and in person for the first time--in fact, so up close that we explored it, sticking our heads in every nook and cranny and getting to know our shared office space for the next week.

Me in the escape hatch to the cargo hold as Rafe Day, a member of Don Blake's group, looks on

SOFIA, seen from the side door of the DC-8

 The crates for the Whole Air Sampler canisters (left) and the MASTER instrument (right) on the DC-8

Me and my roomie, in the bottom hatch of the DC-8

We also learned how NASA scientists plan instrument integration on their science flights, as well as how the meteorology and scheduling considerations impact flight planning. Then, Friday afternoon, we bent tubing to connect the canisters to the WAS and loaded up what the Blake group calls "snakes": rows of canisters that load into the crates.

Bending the tubing for the Whole Air Sampler -- a team effort! (courtesy of NSERC: http://www.nserc.und.edu/learning/SARPmm.html?2011)

The WAS snakes waiting to be loaded on the plane

By the end of the day, we were all exhausted and had the post-work debrief in the jacuzzi, which was the relaxing end we needed to our first week as (makeshift) NASA scientists.

Pre-Mission Lectures

Whew, I'm exhausted! These last three days have been a whirlwind of new information, all flying at us (no pun intended) at full force. We learned about earth-observing satellites from NASA scientists and engineers, as well as the earth, atmospheric and oceanic parameters they measure. (All those lectures can be found here.)

Professor Don Blake, standing in front of Dr. Sherwood Rowland's first notes considering the impact of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere, demonstrating the mechanics of CFCs in an aerosol can using liquid nitrogen (courtesy of NSERC: http://www.nserc.und.edu/learning/SARPmm.html?2011)

We also received a tutorial on ENVI, a remote sensing imagery analysis software that we'll be using with the MASTER data we'll be collecting. Playing with high-resolution satellite images, we practiced techniques for classification, evaluation and interpretation of remote sensing data.

Tomorrow we head to Palmdale to tour the NASA Dryden Airborne Operations Facility. We'll be checking out the planes and learning about mission flight planning.

Orientation

I checked into "Hotel UCI" today for my first day at SARP: the Student Airborne Research Program put on by the National Suborbital Education and Research Center (NSERC), a joint collaboration between NASA and the University of North Dakota; if that's not confusing enough, the program is hosted by the University of California, Irvine, and we'll be at NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, CA.

As the name implies, we'll be doing some airborne research in the DC-8 -- NASA's own flying laboratory.

DC-8 in flight (courtesy of NSERC: http://www.nserc.und.edu/DC8/media.html)

Along with my cohorts from across the country, I'll be taking air samples and monitoring instruments in-flight, then taking those back to the lab to analyze the atmospheric chemistry. Broadly, the mission is to assess the influence of dairy emissions in the Central Valley of California on the atmospheric chemistry of Central and Southern California, but each student chooses a specific project where we analyze data individually and present at the end of the six-week program.

Today was merely the meet and greet, where 30 university seniors, recent grads and grad students mingled with faculty and staff to learn each others' research interests. This, naturally, was achieved via poster session. (What else? We're scientists.) We each submitted a poster to introduce ourselves, detailing our degrees, research and hobbies, and tonight we perused the results, learning who loved N2O and who studied lunar rocks. But we also found out who water skis competitively, who has multiple tattoos and who can draw a profile of her face entirely out of math symbols (my roommate, incidentally: a grad student at the University of New Orleans getting her degree in Statistics). For many of the students, this was their first time in California, and they seemed ready to take advantage of the opportunity -- and of the fresh produce.

At the poster session (courtesy of NSERC: http://www.nserc.und.edu/learning/SARPmm.html?2011)

Tomorrow is the first day in a series of lectures about remote sensing of land, ocean and atmospheric systems. We'll be hearing lectures from NASA scientists and university professors who have been in this field since its inception. I am trying not to be intimidated by how intense it looks:

Our first week at SARP

We head to Dryden on Thursday, and then for the next week or so, we'll be in Palmdale, learning about airborne research and trying to be more than dead weight on flights. I couldn't have invented a better way to start my summer.