12 April 2010
On Tuesday April 13, the Global Hawk Unattended Aircraft System will be doing its first 24-hour science flight. Part of this flight includes a coordination with National Science Foundation's Gulfstream V research aircraft, HIAPER, on the route between Alaska and Hawaii. The NSF G-5 will be flying Kona to Anchorage and intercepting track of the the Aura satellite, which carries the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS). The Global Hawk will be doing a leg from near Alaska all the way to 15 degrees N, also over the MLS track. The two plane tracks will meet somewhere in the middle between Hawaii and Alaska very close to an actual Aura overpass time. The flight will provide an unprecedented opportunity to address one of the objectives of the Global Hawk Pacific (GloPac) mission, namely, the validation and scientific collaboration with NASA earth-monitoring satellite missions. ESRL scientists from the Chemical Sciences Division and the Global Monitoring Division are participating in GloPac, with CSD's David Fahey serving as co-Project Scientist.