The Earth Observer--March/April, 1995 Vol. 7, No. 2

Airborne Science Flight Opportunities

Andy Cameron (acameron@mtpe.hq.nasa.gov), Airborne Science Support Office, NASA HQ

The accompanying table is an update of a similar table published in the May/June 1994 issue of The Earth Observer. The intent is to let investigators know of planned scientific flight opportunities that may offer the possibility of shared resources for Earth observation. Some of the missions shown require deployments that could provide possible "piggyback" opportunities in the areas to be over flown during such "ferry" flights. In some instances, advanced knowledge of the mission will facilitate arrangements for sharing of data.

In these times of federal downsizing and fiscal reductions, the need for outyear planning has become of paramount importance. Critical scientific activity must be identified as early as possible to insure that proper funding and logistics planning can maintain each program's effectiveness. Entries in the table do not necessarily indicate firm commitments to carry out these missions, but should nevertheless serve as a guide to the possibilities for cooperative airborne research activities.

The EOS Project Science Office at the Goddard Space Flight Center would like to extend the usefulness of tables like that of NASA flights shown here, and invites reports from other groups describing planned flights that could provide opportunities for sharing.

Following is a list of the acronyms for the various organizations and missions that appear on the table.

Table 1. ELV and Shuttle Mission
Table 2. DC-8 and ER-2
Table 3. C-130B, P-3B, and C-130Q
Table 4. T-39E, UH-1, and Mission Support Aircraft

ADEOS          Advanced Earth Observing Satellite
AES            Airborne Emission Spectrometer
AOL            Airborne Oceanographic Lidar
ARC            NASA Ames Research Center
ASAS           Advanced Solid-state Array Spectroradiometer
ASTRO          Astronomy Platform (Shuttle)
ATLAS          Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and
                 Science
AVIRIS         Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging
                 Spectrometer
AVIS           Airborne Vegetation Index Sensor
BARC           Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
BOREAS         Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study
CY             Calendar Year
DIAL           Differential Absorption Lidar
DoD            Department of Defense
ELV            Expendable Launch Vehicle (Rocket, Pegasus
                 etc.)
ESTAR          Electronically Scanned Thinned Array
                 Radiometer
FAST           Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer
FY             Fiscal Year
GFCR           Gas Filter Correlation Radiometer
GSFC           Goddard Space Flight Center
GTE/PEM        Global Tropospheric Experiment/Pacific
                 Exploratory Mission
HAB            Habitation Module, Shuttle/Space Station
JGOFS          Joint Global Ocean Flux Study
KSC            Kennedy Space Center
LASAL          Large Aperture Scanning Airborne Lidar
LASE           Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment
LMS            Logistics Module, Shuttle
MAC            Multiple Aircraft Campaign
MACAWS         Multiagency Airborne Coherent Atmospheric
                 Wind Sounder
MAG            Magnetic, Geo-Magnetic or Io-Magnetic
MAG-DIP        Magnetic Dip Campaign
MAS            MODIS Airborne Simulator
MODIS          Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
MSA            Mission Support Aircraft
MSBLS          Microwave Shuttle Beam Landing System
MSTI           Miniature Seeker Technology Integration
NEAR           Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous
NMS & NADIR    Navigation Management System & Nadir Port
                 (for sensor viewing)
ORB COMM       Communications Satellite
ORSTED         Danish Geomagnetic Field Mapping Mission
OZONE          Ozone Monitoring Mission
QCM            Quartz Crystal Microbalance
RASCAL         Raster Scanning Airborne Laser
SAS            Subsonic Assessment
SASS           Stratospheric Aerosols, Subsonic Assessment
                 Program
SAR            Synthetic Aperture Radar
SCAR-B         Smoke, Clouds, and Radiation, Mission B
SEAWIFS        Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor
SFU-RET        Space Flyer Unit-Return (Japan)
SLA            Shuttle Laser Altimeter
SLICER         Scanning Lidar Imager of Canopies by Echo
                 Recovery
SLM            Space Lab Module (Mir Docking)
SMM            U.S./Russian Mir Docking Mission
SMOKE          Smoke used to make aircraft "WAKE/VORTEX"
                 visible
SRA            Scanning Radar Altimeter
STEP           USAF Space Technology Program
STRAT          Stratospheric Tracer Transport Experiment
SOHO           Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
SRL            Shuttle Radar Laboratory
STS            Space Transport System, Space Shuttle
SWAS           Sub-millimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite
TAMMS          Turbulent Air Motion Measurement System
TDRS           Tracking and Data Relay Satellite
TIMS           Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner
TOMS           Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer
TOTE           Tropical Ozone Transfer Experiment
UAF            Upper Atmospheric Flash
USML           U.S. Microgravity Lab (Shuttle)
USMP           U.S. Microgravity Payload
VOTE           Vortex Ozone Transfer Experiment
WAKE/VORTEX    Aircraft Wing Vortex Experiment
WIMP           Water Impact Payload
WFF            NASA Wallops Flight Facility
WSF            Wake Shield Facility
X-STORM        Thunderstorm Research Program
XTE            X-ray Timing Explorer

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