NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The Swedish icebreaker / research vessel Oden was captured by the photographer from the flight deck of NASA's DC-8 airborne laboratory during a low-level pass on Aug. 12. (NASA photo) NASA's DC-8 airborne laboratory recently concluded a series of long-duration flights in the Arctic between Scandinavia and Greenland as part of the Arctic Mechanisms of Interaction Between the Surface and Atmosphere (AMISA) mission, a NASA Earth Sciences program in support of the International Polar Year science project.

The unique flying science laboratory returned to its base at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., on Aug. 29, 2008, after completing a half-dozen dedicated data flights during the AMISA 2008 mission. The aircraft had been flying out of a deployment base at Kiruna, Sweden, for the duration of the three-week environmental science field campaign. Sweden sponsored the AMISA-affiliated Arctic Summer Cloud-Ocean Study campaign aboard the Swedish research vessel Oden, a converted icebreaker.

Aerosol sampling was performed over the Oden while it was moored in the Artic Ocean and also over other wide-ranging areas of the Arctic. The sampling's goal was to determine the density and composition of biogenic and maritime aerosol flows into the near-polar Arctic inversion layer from the free troposphere and to map the sea ice. The mapping activity will serve to improve NASA satellite imaging of sea ice concentration.

According to principal investigator Albin J. Gasiewski, the team of scientists aboard the airborne laboratory sought to safely and efficiently acquire atmospheric and surface interaction data during the Arctic sea ice freezeup. Gasiewski, director of the Center for Environmental Technology that is jointly operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado at the university's Boulder campus, said the AMISA mission's goal is to understand the sea ice and atmospheric radiation processes leading to Arctic sea ice freezeup.

The AMISA mission is also supported by the National Suborbital Education and Research Center operated by the University of North Dakota, the National Science Foundation, the Swedish Polar Secretariat and the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). AMISA participants include personnel from the University of Colorado, University of Leeds (UK), Georgia Institute of Technology, and NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center and Langley Research Center.

For further details on science aspects of AMISA, see the AMISA science report.

Following completion of downloading of AMISA instruments during the first week of September, NASA's DC-8 airborne laboratory is now being prepared for its next deployment to Papeete, Tahiti on Sept. 26. From Tahiti, the DC-8 and a second aircraft will provide a platform for video and still photography recording of the atmospheric re-entry of the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle -1, which is due to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere over the South Pacific Sept. 29 after departing from the International Space Station. The ATV-1 cargo ship had recently brought a load of supplies and experiments to the orbiting space station.

Alan Brown
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center