OIB concluded the 2018 DC8 Antarctic campaign today with a successful “Bellingshausen-Amundsen Divide IS-2” mission today.
This was the 24th science mission of the deployment (equaling the previous record for DC8 missions flown during one deployment), and the most challenging to execute. The DC8 aircraft could not be fully fueled last evening, in case that today’s mission would have been cancelled for weather (the fully fueled aircraft would be too heavy for the transit to Santiago, requiring several extra flight hours to burn fuel before NASA 817 could land at Santiago). The weather forecast was not promising this morning, causing some delay to receive later satellite weather images to permit a “go” decision. The extra fuel needed to fly the mission had to be loaded after the decision was made, and logistical issues of scheduling multiple fuel truck deliveries, combined with fuel truck pump issues were further delaying the mission, and required the DC8 to be towed to the airport fueling area (fuel can be pumped from underground tanks) while maintaining to experimental aircraft power needed to maintain instrument calibrations. The DC8 aircrew team did a wonderful job minimizing the delays to two hours from the scheduled takeoff.
The two hour delay (impacting aircrew duty time) and the weather onsite (clouds over the eastern portion of the science lines) resulted in NASA 817 preceding to the midpoint of the second science line. Cloudy conditions over all but the northern 10% of that line (impacting the optical cameras and lidars) cleared rapidly, and the remainder of the science lines were flown in clear (west) to hazy (east) conditions with 100% coverage. All OIB remote sensing instruments reported good data collection (with the exception of the imaging spectrometer (SWIR data only) which did not output data).
This mission completes the OIB science campaign.
Wide view of today’s flight path
Detailed view of today’s science lines
[Wikipedia: Thanks, Rob!]
The Jones Mountains are an isolated group of mountains, trending generally east-west for 43 km (27 mi), situated on the Eights Coast, Ellsworth Land, about 80 km (50 mi) south of Dustin Island in Antarctica. The charts of the USAS, 1939-41, show mountains in this approximate location and relationship to Dustin and Thurston Islands, indicating they were sighted in the flight from the ship Bear, February 27, 1940. The mountains appear in distant air photos taken by US Navy Operation Highjump, December 30, 1946, and were observed from USN aircraft by Edward Thiel and J. Campbell Craddock, January 22, 1960. The naming was proposed by Thiel and Craddock after Dr. Thomas O. Jones (1908-93), American chemist; senior NSF official in charge of the U.S. Antarctic Research Program, 1958-78; Director, Division of Environmental Science, NSF, 1965-69; Deputy Assistant Director for National and International Programs, NSF, 1969-78.
[Wikipedia: Thanks, Rob!]
Hudson Mountains. Hudson Mountains is a group of parasitic cones, forming nunataks just above the Antarctic ice sheet in west Ellsworth Land.[1] These mountains lie just east of Cranton Bay and Pine Island Bay at the eastern extremity of Amundsen Sea, and are bounded on the north by Cosgrove Ice Shelf and on the south by Pine Island Glacier.[2]..The mountains were discovered by members of the USAS in flights from the USS Bear in February 1940, and further delineated from air photos taken by USN Operation Highjump in December 1946. The full extent of the group was mapped by USGS from US Navy air photos of 1966. Named by US-SCAN after Capt. William L. Hudson, commander of the USS Peacock during USEE, 1838-42. Given the fact that they are little-eroded, and that steam was reported in 1974, and an unconfirmed report of an eruption detected by satellite in 1985, the Hudson Mountains may be active.
[Wikipedia: Thanks, Rob!]
Mount Nickens, A snow-covered mesa-type mountain with a steep northern rock face, marking the NW extremity of the Hudson Mountains. It stands just E of the base of Canisteo Peninsula and overlooks Cosgrove Ice Shelf. Mapped from air photos taken by USN Operation HighJump, 1946-47. Named by US-ACAN for Herbert P. Nickens, map compilation specialist who contributed significantly to the construction of USGS sketch maps of Antarctica.
Looking uptream at Pine Island Glacier, sea ice in the foreground, calving front, and the glacier rising up in the background
Icebergs calving from Pine Island Glacier
Rifts between icebergs
Edge of a Pine Island Iceberg
Icebergs calving from Pine Island Glacier
Calving front of Pine Island Glacier
ATM T6 wide scan lidar elevation map of 65 meter high calving front of Pine Island Glacier
T6 wide scan lidar elevation map crossing part of Iceberg B46 which broke from Pine Island Glacier
ATM T6 wide scan lidar elevation map detail of the rift (65 meter deep) shown on the upper portion of the above plot of Iceberg B46 which broke from Pine Island Glacier
ATM T6 wide scan lidar elevation map detail of the rift (50 meter deep) shown in the above two plots