Preparations for the OIB Spring 2018 P3 Arctic deployment are being completed.
The ATM lidar and DMS camera calibration mission was flown Wednesday in clear weather but with some windy and turbulent conditions. Following tune up of the ATM lidars over Assateague Island, the P3 aircraft completed 7 passes over the N159 ramp calibration site, acquired some wave mapping data over a ocean wave buoy very close to Wallops as we waited for a restricted area to clear for DMS calibration, and finished the calibration mission with two 4000′ passes over the N159 calibration site for DMS. The ATM T6 wide scan and ATM T7 green and IR narrow scan systems functioned as expected, as did the ancillary ATM FLIR, CAMBOT, and HeadWall sensors. DMS reported good data collection for calibration.
Thursday a successful CReSIS Radar mission was flown to check out and calibrate the CReSIS MCoRDS Radar ice depth sounding, Accumulation Radar, and Snow Radar systems. This mission was conducted 200 miles east of Virginia Beach over the ocean.
The schedule is for the P3 to transit to Thule on Monday.
NASA 426 at sunrise
NASA 426 taking off (photo by Arron Wells)
Delmarva Countryside during the calibration passes.
Very preliminary ATM T6 wide scan lidar elevation data over the N159 calibration ramp site (rectangular outline is our cal area). N159 hangar is evident, as well as an aircraft on the north side of the ramp.