Aircraft List

The NASA Airborne Science Program aircraft list provides unique NASA aircraft and commercial aircraft that benefit the earth science community. These manned and unmanned aircraft carry the sensors that provide data to support and augment NASA spaceborne missions.
 
Reminder: All investigators with approved or pending proposals from the Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) announcements that have a requirement for a NASA Airborne Science platform/instrument, must submit a Flight Request. The Flight Request is also the method to acquire an estimate if your proposal requires a cost estimate for Airborne Science support. However, for investigators proposing to participate on large, multi- aircraft experiments, such as the ROSES 2011: South East Asia Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling Regional Studies (SEAC4RS), a single Flight Request will be submitted for each mission by the project scientist or project manager. The Science Operations Flight Request System (SOFRS) can be reached directly at http://airbornescience.nasa.gov/sofrs.
 
For all "Commercial" aircraft, in addition to filing a Flight Request, investigators are responsible for contacting vendors to determine if the platform meets the requirements of the proposed scientific investigation. It is the responsibility of the investigator to ensure that before any preliminary test flights or actual data collection flights utilizing NASA personnel, instruments or funds occur, all vendors successfully complete a NASA airworthiness/flight safety review in accordance with NASA Aviation Safety Policy for Non-NASA Aircraft.

G-III - JSC

NASA G-III JSC

*** This aircraft is currently undergoing maintenance and modifications ***

The NASA Gulfstream III (G-III) is a business jet that has been structurally modified by the Johnson Space Center and will be instrumented at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center to serve as a platform for the UAVSAR as well as servinging as a multi-role cooperative research platform for the earth science community and a variety of flight research customers. This particular aircraft, which carried the military designation of C-20A, was obtained from the U.S. Air Force in 2003.

Owner/Operator: 
NASA - JSC
Type: 
Conventional Aircraft
Duration: 
7 hours (payload and weather dependent)
Useful Payload: 
2,610 lbs
Gross Take-off Weight: 
69,700 lbs
Onboard Operators: 
8 passengers and 2 aircrew
Max Altitude: 
45,000
Point(s) of Contact: 

Jim Alexander

281-244-9870