Biomass Antarctic campaign on track

With ESA’s Biomass in the latter stages of development, two intrepid scientists are braving the cold in the icy reaches of Antarctica for two months to take measurements from the air and from the ground to help prepare for this new satellite mission.

Here’s the next report from Jørgen Dall and Anders Kusk.

 11 January 2024
The field campaign continues to go well with us acquiring TomoSAR data from a racetrack repeated ten times over the Shackleton ice shelf.

Fortunately, the pilots followed the desired tracks aided by our EMAP guidance: a small cockpit-mounted display that shows the position of the desired track with respect to the aircraft.

On track. (DTU)

For subsequent verification of the TomoSAR digital elevation model we hope to generate, we also acquired ice-sounding profiles along three tracks over the TomoSAR strip.

Ice-sounding profiles. (DTU)

The realtime processed data look good.

Realtime data. (DTU)

On the way back to Casey we refuelled at Denman Terrestrial Camp, Bunger Hills.

Refuelling. (DTU)

Denman Terrestrial Camp, Bunger Hills. (DTU)

12 January 2024
It might seem a bit odd, but today we celebrated Christmas in the afternoon and New Year in the evening!

13–14 January 2024
Two off days for the Ops staff, which means no flights. We have applied preliminary processing to the synthetic aperture radar data from the test flight. The radar reflector is easily seen (it is actually the brightest pixel in the scene), and it appears focused.

In various ways, we are also preparing for the Dome-C mapping. The plan is still to leave for Concordia on 17 January.

Tomorrow’s flights are dedicated to the ICECAP programme. The flight lines are mostly over water, and the sensors are deployables – measuring ocean salinity, temperature etc.

Nevertheless, we will take the opportunity to carry out some Polaris tests, which require the radar to be airborne. The weather forecast for Tuesday does not look too good, so the next real Polaris flight might be the transit to Concordia on Wednesday.

Post from: Jørgen Dall and Anders Kusk. (DTU)