More than 50 journalists and social media
followers learned about how a small fleet 
of highly specialized aircraft support 
NASA's Earth science and environmental 
mission, at a recent Airborne Science 
Showcase at NASA's Dryden Flight Research 
Center at Edwards Air Force Base and its 
science aircraft operations facility in 
nearby Palmdale, California.
In addition to being able to see many of 
the aircraft and instruments used in those 
campaigns, participants were briefed on a 
half-dozen current or near-term missions
and the overall goals of NASA's Earth
science program.
With what we do on the Airborne Science 
Program, really is enmeshed and critical 
with what we do with our space missions 
as well. We're NASA - we launch rockets! 
But primarily from the science directorate 
at NASA, and Earth science in particular, 
our main goal is to try to advance our 
understanding of the science itself.
Among the current or near-term missions 
covered in detail were the DISCOVER-AQ 
air quality mission in progress over 
California's San Joaquin Valley, the 
PODEX mission that is evaluating three 
sophisticated polarimeters for use on 
a future space satellite, and the 
Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment, 
a multi-year campaign that's investigating 
how the chemistry of upper atmosphere 
regions is changing Earth in a warming climate.
Again, ATTREX is a multi-agency, multi-national 
campaign - we've got investigators from 
NASA, from NOAA, multiple universities, 
private companies. Data from this will be 
made public, and will hopefully be used 
to improve the climate forecasts.
NASA's Airborne Science aircraft have 
diverse capabilities, ranging from the 
high-flying ER-2 and the unmanned 
long-range Global Hawk, to more traditional 
aircraft like a B-200 King Air, a C-20A, 
a P-3B, and a DC-8 flying laboratory. 
The aircraft are based at four NASA centers, 
with six of the unique craft based at 
NASA Dryden's facilities at Edwards 
and Palmdale.
