A successful ATM lidar and photo checkout mission was completed yesterday afternoon. The flight departed to the east of Palmdale over the desert to align and adjust the lidar systems and cameras, and returned to fly a number of repeat passes at various altitudes over the El Mirage dry lakebed (where the ATM team maintains a vehicle GPS survey to calibrate the airborne ATM data) and well as the Palmdale Building 703 taxiway (another ATM GPS survey site) as well as ground camera survey markers to calibrate the CAMBOT, FLIR and HeadWall camera systems.
The ATM had a minor IR laser alignment issue that we’ve worked to correct today, but will not impact ATM calibration.
The next few days are packing and time-off before we begin our deployment Sunday evening.
NASA flight tracker data from yesterday’s flight
A view of the desert east of Palmdale
A view of the NASA AFRC Building 703 (right bottom) with the SOPHIA 747 aircraft on the ramp.
El Mirage dry lakebed
Another view of El Mirage
And the ground view of El Mirage during the GPS vehicle survey (photo courtesy of Jeremy Harbeck