After three days on display at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture 2009 in Oshkosh, Wis., NASA’s NASA's Gulfstream-III environmental science research aircraft has embarked on a two-week radar imaging mission along the East Coast.
En route to Oshkosh, the G-III imaged areas of Yellowstone National Park, collecting data about deformation of the Earth's surface.
From Oshkosh, the aircraft continued on to the East Coast carrying the Jet Propulsion Laboratory-developed Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, or UAVSAR, located in a pod under the aircraft's belly. The instrument is designed to acquire airborne repeat path tracks of synthetic aperture radar data for differential interferometric measurements.
The G-III will fly from Bangor International Airport, Maine, and the UAVSAR will image forests in Maine, Vermont and Canada. Collecting repeat path data, scientists will look for short-term changes in the forest canopy.
The G-III will then transit to the Raleigh-Durham International Airport, N.C., for additional forest canopy penetration studies covering the Harvard and Duke forests.
The return flight to California on Aug. 16 will include data collection over Coastal Virginia and the Piedmont region of North Carolina to study wetlands and coastal beach erosion.
