Tag Archives: NASA

100 years on … the spirit of international collaboration and our polar regions

From Michael (NASA), the Arctic, 29 March

Today marks the centennial of Sir Robert Falcon’s death on the Ross Ice Shelf on March 29, 1912. There are many commemorative events taking place around the world today to remember the scientific accomplishments of the Terra Nova Expedition. The most prominent of all events is a National Service of Commemoration for Captain Scott and the Pole Party at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, with our own Seelye Martin participating as a guest of honor. In 2008, I had the privilege to visit Captain Scott's historic Terra Nova Hut on Cape Evans in Antarctica, and the geographic South Pole, where the National Science Foundation has installed a sign with Scott’s famous quote. It took my breath away.

One hundred years later we launch two aircraft from different locations and meet up over the Arctic Ocean on a track that has been flown shortly before by a spacecraft more than 600 km above us.

Today's flight plan

 

A lot has changed to say the least, but nevertheless operating in remote polar regions remains a challenge even today, with the safety and success depending on extremely experienced and skilled members of the aircrew and instrument teams that excel in meeting this challenge every day. Today’s polar research is driven by a spirit of international collaboration and today’s flight is a fine example of what can be accomplished when many nations and organizations team up instead of competing with each other. Recognizing the enormous accomplishments of the early polar explorers we dedicate today’s mission to the members of the Terra Nova Expedition who died in Antarctica 100 years ago.

Ellesmere Island at start of our CryoVEx survey (M. Studinger)

 The first part of today’s mission was a joint survey with the European Space Agency’s CryoVEx campaign. The plan was to fly three aircraft and CryoSat-2 within hours on the same satellite orbit. In addition to the P-3 (N426NA), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Space) has chartered a DHC-6-300 Twin Otter (TF-POF) from Norlandair and has installed a laser scanner and ASIRAS, which is the airborne version of SIRAL, the radar that flies on the CryoSat-2 spacecraft. We had also planned to have a Basler BT-67 (DC-3) aircraft, ‘Polar 5’ (C-GAWI) from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, participate in the joint flight. The Polar 5 is equipped with an EM-31 bird for measuring sea ice thickness, an airborne laser scanner, and nadir looking video and camera systems. Unfortunately, there was a technical issue with the EM-31 bird that could not be resolved in time for the flight and the Polar 5 did not participate on today’s CryoVEx flight.

One of the many refrozen leads we saw today (mosiac from Eric Fraim)

The choreography of events we had developed worked out perfectly. We had excellent weather in the survey area, which was an incredible help. We only have two orbits per day that are inside the temporary SAR mode mask of CryoSat-2 north of Alert (see map) and selected the early morning orbit that was flown by the spacecraft at 11:31 Zulu. The P-3 took off from Thule as soon as the airfield opened at 11:00 Z. At 12:12 Z we were close to Alert and heard on the radio that the Norlandair Twin Otter was taxiing. N426NA reached the start of the survey line at the coast of Ellesmere Island at 12:18 Z with TF-POF close behind us. The timing worked out perfectly – a job well done by everyone involved. At 13:16 Z we reached the end of the CryoSat survey line and turned towards waypoint RK04 of the ZigZag West mission plan. At 17:05 Z we reached the end of the survey line at waypoint NTSW and started climbing for the transit back to Thule.

 It was a perfect day.

More pictures are here:

http://michaelstudinger.smugmug.com/

Time to draw breath

From Seymour, Katharine & Rosie (UCL) in Alert, 18 April  

Ground work (credits: S. Laxon)

As the main activities in Alert are winding down, it's time to draw breath before the next leg of the campaign kicks off in Svalbard and Greenland. The UCL team has been looking back at what has been achieved over the last week.

After arriving in Alert, bad weather initially prevented the aircraft from flying to the experiment sites. However, a break in the weather and safe arrival of the DTU team with the precious ASIRAS instrument on 13 April meant that everything was in place to get the campaign off the ground.

Heading north (credits: S. Laxon)

The break in the weather held so that they were able to survey both experiment sites.

The northerly site is 85.58° N – less than 500 km from the North Pole. Landing here incurred several bounces as the plane touched down. After unloading, the plane then left to cool down its skis.

The skis get so hot during landing that if the plane just stops it will freeze solid to the ice, making it impossible to move again – clearly, not a good idea when you're 400 km from base.

Both sites were marked out with flags and then the corner reflectors are erected and tarpaulins placed on the ground to help the aircraft locate the line.

Setting up the ground radar (credits: K. Giles)

With the sites set up, the aircraft were able to make their survey flights over the following days. This includes the DTU Twin Otter carrying the ASIRAS instrument, the AWI Polar-5 towing the torpedo-shaped electromagnetic sensor and the NASA P-3 aircraft.

The Polar-5 flight proved a little disconcerting as the instrument hangs from the plane, just 10 m above the ground. The plane itself only flies at an altitude of about 200 ft while it's taking measurements.

Polar-5 towing the EM-Bird low over the ground (credits: S. Laxon)

Friday 15 April was a significant milestone in the campaign as the coordinated NASA underflight of CryoSat went perfectly.

It's been a pretty intense period and we've worked flat out in the hostile Arctic environment, and always at the mercy of incoming cloud.

This sometimes means waiting for the cloud to lift before the planes can take off and be sure of a safe landing on the precarious floating sea ice.

Although it's been a busy few days working in extremely cold conditions, the team did have a little time to take a few snaps, showing the beauty the Arctic holds.

For example, this was a beautiful ridge at the site formed as two ice floes push together.

Blue ice ridge (K. Giles)

The ice buckles up and down in large blocks, leaving exposed lumps of blue ice on the surface. The ridge also had a very deep cavity.

Ice ridge (credits: S. Laxon)

This photo shows one the Arctic wolves from the pack living around the Alert base.

Arctic wolf (credits: R. Willatt)

Great day for sea-ice research as ESA and NASA work together

From Michael (NASA), over Alert, 15 April

Today’s flight was a coordinated effort between ESA’s CryoVEx campaign and NASA’s Operation IceBridge. The CryoVEx 2011 teams are currently operating from Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert and have installed corner reflectors and GPS buoys on the sea ice north of Alert yesterday using a Kenn Borek Twin Otter. Today and tomorrow, teams from the University College London and the University of Alberta are on the ice making in situ measurements along the profiles between the corner reflectors.

Buoy3 Corner Reflector

Campaign corner reflector from NASA plane (credits: NASA/Digital Mapping System)

A DC-3/BT-67 Basler from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany participates in the experiment with a towed EM-bird for sea-ice thickness measurements and a laser altimeter. The Technical University of Denmark is operating the ASIRAS radar, the airborne version of CryoSat’s SIRAL radar on a Twin Otter.

Today, we had all four aircraft operating on the same survey line to make measurements for comparison with CryoSat-2, which was flying overhead.  What a great day for sea ice research!

The NASA IceBridge teams participated by collecting data along a 0.5 km long profile, that will be surveyed tomorrow by the UCL team on the ground, which had installed the corner reflectors and GPS buoys yesterday. After transiting from Kangerlussuaq, we had enough time to fly 6 passes over the survey line making sure we got close enough within a few tens of meters to the corner reflectors. The visual aids have been invaluable and were clearly visible from 1500 ft and at 250 kts. On several of the passes we got closer than 10 meters to the corner reflectors and saw once a 25 dB increase in signal amplitude on the snow radar.

CryoVEx buoys seen from NASA plane

CryoVEx buoys from NASA plane (credits:NASA/Digital Mapping System)

The purpose of this experiment is to tie all the different measurements together and calibrate/validate the CryoSat-2 measurements in cold conditions over sea ice. Today’s data set of ground measurements, multiple airborne measurements with a comprehensive suite of instruments, and a CryoSat overpass will create a landmark data set to shed light on fundamental issues in remote sensing of sea ice. After finishing the 6 passes we had time to fly 60 miles of the CryoSat line before heading back to Kangerlussuaq. CryoSat-2 was passing overhead just 12 minutes before us.

Today was a great example of what can be accomplished when many organizations and nations work together. It was a great coordination effort. Well done everyone. Thanks to all the CryoVEx and IceBridge teams and Jim from Ice Shelf Alert for coordinating all the traffic in the area today.

NASA IceBridge – clear but bumpy over southeast Greenland

From Michael (NASA) Greenland ice sheet, 11 April

Gyldenlove glacier, Greenland (credits: M. Studinger)

On April 11, NASA's IceBridge campaign finally got the clear weather necessary to fly over glaciers in southeast Greenland. Typically, this area is shrouded in cloud, but strong winds from the Greenland ice sheet can clear the cloud – but these winds and the rugged coastal topography cause a lot of air turbulence. So, with clear skies came winds of up to 70 knots, which made for a bumpy ride over the calving front of glaciers such as Gyldenlove seen here.

Despite the difficult conditions we were able to survey all planned glaciers in the cloud-free area south of 65N. The amount of windblown snow was extreme and often reduced visibility for flight operations. Today’s data will be a good dataset to evaluate the potential impact of windblown snow for ICESat-2 laser altimeter measurements.

Wind-blown snow over Greenland (credits: M. Studinger)

NASA's IceBridge, is an airborne campaign to monitor polar ice. As part of their campaign, NASA is taking part in joint flights with ESA planes, overflights of European ground sites and underflights of CryoSat.

By cooperating in collecting a huge and varied airborne dataset a better understanding of the data from ESA's CryoSat and NASA's ICESat missions will be achieved.

Post adapted from Michael Studinger's 11 April Operation IceBridge flight report.

Up and away

From Malcolm (ESA), NL on 8 April
Just leaving ESA in the Netherlands for my flight to Alert in northern Canada to start the campaign – which has to be one of the biggest I've organised in my 10 years at ESA.

Twin Otter (credits: DTU)

Twin Otter (credits: DTU)

The two planes we have dedicated to the campaign will arrive this weekend along with other team members from Europe and Canada. So, hopefully we'll be kicking off with the first flights on Monday.

We've got a Twin Otter arriving from the Technical University of Denmark that carries the ASIRAS instrument. ASIRAS is an airborne instrument that was developed specifically to mimic the radar altimeter on the CryoSat satellite. In addition, we have a Basler-67 from the Alfred Wegner Institute, which is equipped with an electro-magnetic ice-thickness sensor.

So, while the planes take measurements from the air, team members will be out on the ice taking ground measurements. Apparently it's about -30°, so it's going to be a challenge.

I'll be spending the two weeks out in Alert, based at a military centre. From there I'll be covering the main activities before nipping back to NL for a week and then heading straight off to Greenland for another leg of the campaign.

NASA are already well into their IceBridge ice survey campaign and things seem to be going well with that. During the campaign, NASA is going to be carrying out several flights for us – underflying CryoSat. This is a great example of cooperation between our two space agencies.

I'm really looking forward to starting the campaign. It's been a lot of work to organise – we have over 50 people participating from 15 organisations, not counting ESA. So, now actually getting off the ground marks a real milestone!