This Is Not A Photo Op For Air Force One

This Is Not A Photo Op For Air Force One

Unlike the ill advised low altitude flight of Air Force One over New York City a year or so ago, which scared the hell out of New Yorkers, these flights are for a different purpose.

A challenge for Earth-observing satellites measuring air quality is to distinguish between pollution high in the atmosphere and that near the surface where people live and breathe. This summer NASA begins a multi-year airborne field campaign to tackle this challenge.

The project is called DISCOVER-AQ, which stands for Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality." NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., is the lead center for the mission.

Two NASA research aircraft will fly over the Baltimore-Washington area of northeastern Maryland through July as part of a mission to enhance the measurement of ground-level air quality from space.

One of the aircraft, a 117-foot P-3B, will fly spiral profiles over six ground stations in Maryland throughout the month. These profiles will extend from 15,000 feet to as low as 1,000 feet from the ground. Between ground stations, flights will sample air along traffic corridors at low altitude.

Twelve to 14 flights are planned throughout the month. The P-3B, a four-engine turboprop, will carry a suite of nine instruments, while the two-engine UC-12 will carry two instruments.

Sampling will focus on an area extending from Beltsville, Md., in the southwest to the northeastern corner of Maryland in a pattern that follows major traffic corridors.