COVER IMAGE Background on front and back cover: View of cloud layer from P-3 during ORACLES mission, looking toward Namibia coastline. Science Mission Directorate Airborne Science Program 2016 Annual Report II Table of Contents 1. Leadership Comments .......................................................................................................................... 1 2. Program Overview ................................................................................................................................. 3 Structure of the Program ...................................................................................................... 3 New Program Capabilities .................................................................................................... 4 Flight Request System and Flight Hours ............................................................................... 4 3. Science ..................................................................................................................................................... 8 Major Mission Highlights ....................................................................................................... 8 KORUS-AQ ................................................................................................................... 8 Operation IceBridge (OIB) ............................................................................................ 11 OLYMPEX / RADEX ..................................................................................................... 12 Earth Venture Suborbital .............................................................................................. 13 UAVSAR and AFRISAR 2016 ....................................................................................... 22 VIRGAS ....................................................................................................................... 24 AVIRIS and AVIRIS-NG 2016 Activities ......................................................................... 25 Support to ESD Satellite Missions, including Decadal Survey Missions ............................... 27 SMAPVEX-16 .............................................................................................................. 28 SLAPex Freeze/Thaw .................................................................................................. 29 ASCENDS-16 .............................................................................................................. 30 HyspIRI Preparatory Airborne Studies .......................................................................... 31 AirSWOT ..................................................................................................................... 32 NISAR ......................................................................................................................... 33 Support to Instrument Development ................................................................................... 34 CARbon Airborne Flux Experiment (CARAFE) ............................................................... 35 2017 Upcoming Activities .................................................................................................. 37 4. Aircraft 39 ASP-Supported Aircraft ...................................................................................................... 40 Other NASA Earth Science Aircraft ...................................................................................... 46 5. Aircraft Cross-Cutting Support and IT Infrastructure ...................................................................55 ASP Facility Science Infrastructure .................................................................................... 55 Facility Instrumentation .............................................................................................. 55 Sensor Network IT Infrastructure ................................................................................ 56 NASA Airborne Science Data and Telemetry (NASDAT) System ............................... 57 Satellite Communications Systems ............................................................................ 57 NASA Airborne Science Program III Payload Management ................................................................................................. 57 Mission Tool Suite ............................................................................................................... 58 6. Advanced Planning .................................................................................................................................................61 Requirements Update ......................................................................................................... 61 5-yr Plan ........................................................................................................................... 62 7. Education, Training, Outreach and Partnerships ..............................................................................................63 Student Airborne Research Program 2016 .......................................................................... 63 Appendix A: Airborne Science Program History - Steve Hipskind ............................................................. 66 Appendix B : Appendix: 5-yr Plan and Aircraft Maintenance Schedules ................................................... 74 Appendix C: Acronyms ................................................................................................................................ 80 Table of Figures Figure 1 Science Mission Directorate Organization Chart ............................................. 3 Figure 2 Airborne Science Organization Chart .............................................................. 4 Figure 3 ASP flight hours over past 19 years ................................................................. 6 Figure 4 Locations of ASP missions in 2016 .................................................................. 7 Figure 5 Members of the KORUS-AQ Science Team attending the Media Day at Osan Air Base are pictured above. In all, 300 people from 5 NASA centers and more than 10 US and 14 Korean research institutions participated in Operations at Osan AB. .............................................................................................. 10 Figure 6 2016 OIB Arctic flight tracks .......................................................................... 11 Figure 7 December 3, 2015 mission. Left, background. Flight tracks from a triple aircraft stack flown under the GPM Core satellite nadir point overlaid on composite ground radar reflectivity. An image of a riming aggregate snowflake is shown from a UND Citation imaging probe flying in cloud at a height of ~4 - 5 km under the DC-8 ....................................................................................... 13 Figure 8 EVS-2 Mission Locations ................................................................................ 14 Figure 9 The ATom team back in Palmdale after completion of the first ATom field campaign .................................................................................................. 15 Figure 10 NAAMES 2016 science measurement tracks and intensive field s ampling stations. Heavy Pink Line = UNOLS Atlantis ship track. Thin Orange Line = C-130 Hercules science flight lines. Purple Dots = Intensive sampling stations (labeled S0 to S5) .......................................................................................... 16 Figure 11 Langley B-200 and WFF C-130 paired for ACT-America flights ................... 17 Figure 12 P-3 and ER-2 flight tracks during the ORACLES-2016 deployment. ............ 19 Figure 13 Pilot Stu Broce with the Honorable Minister of Environment and Tourism, Phamba Shifeta ..................................................................................... 19 IV NASA Airborne Science Program Table of Contents Figure 14 Locations of AirGravity measurements ........................................................ 20 Figure 15 OMG’s AXCTD system acquiring data, North East of Nerlerit Inaat, Greenland ............................................................................................ 21 Figure 16 Mosaic of PRISM data from the Great Barrier Reef ...................................... 22 Figure 17 Science and Application disciplines collecting UAVSAR data in FY16. The chart shows the number of flight lines per discipline, including P-, L-, and Ka-band instruments. .......................................................................................... 23 Figure 18 Geographical extent of FY16 UAVSAR L-band flights and data acquisitions ................................................................................................. 23 Figure 19 UAVSAR L-band polarimetric image of Pongara National Park, Gabon, acquired during the AfriSAR deployment in February 2016. In this false color image, the contributions of 3 radar polarizations are displayed in red (HH), green (HV), and blue (VV). The interaction of the radar signal with tree trunks and canopies allows us to differentiate mangroves (purple-pink) from dry forests (green). Data can be found at: uavsar.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/data.pl ........................... 24 Figure 20 WB-57 Flight tracks during VIRGAS mission. ............................................... 25 Figure 21 WB-57F SO2 measurements show good agreement with the GMAO model .............................................................................................................