Day 34 to 36: First Science Flight!

Pre-flight: done!

Aircraft: in runway!

ATTREX team members: ready to go!

Power up…vehicle is moving…

YES!, On Tuesday Feb 5 around 7:52 am (PST) the Global Hawk 672 took off from Edwards Air Force Base heading to West Pacific Ocean. I was extremely excited, my heart was beating fast and my hands were sweating…it was amazing to see the aircraft finally in the air! 

Two minutes after take-off, I started to warm up my instrument (pumps were on!), and 15 min later I started to take our first sample…Yes, so far so good!!!

I kept sampling for several hours, but suddenly, when I was ready to draw some air inside canister 33, the pressures in my instrument dropped…uh oh!!! What is going on…PANIC!!! This never happened before. I was glad that our instrument PI (principal investigator) was next to me, so he figured out that one of our pumps just stopped working.

Well, no more sampling from this flight (bummer!)…I was really disappointed, not only because I would miss the fun of the sampling collection, but also, because I felt like I letdown all my ATTREX team (In this kind of campaign, the data collection is really valuable from other instrument teams since they can compare and validate their results)…but everybody kept telling me, and I knew, these things happen, and it is part of the science, which is based on precision and not on perfection (otherwise it would be so boring!).

Anyway, the worst part of this event was to know that we would have to stay in the Operation Center until the end of the flight, yes,  24 lovely hours doing almost nothing…just turning our instrument on (to keep it warmed) and turn it off for descending (remember, AWAS takes most of the power from the aircraft, and they need it during descending.)

Yes, what a night! I was only waiting for the aircraft to land to get inside it and determine the reason why my instrument had an unsuccessful flight.

A view of my instrument screen before pumps failed

Day 37 and 38:  A little surgery for the pumps!

Ok, so my team had access to the aircraft, and we found that indeed one of our pumps died during flight. We took it out, opened it and found a frozen bearing. This is something feasible, since temperatures at high altitudes are really cold. Thus, we replaced the pump with a spare one (lucky that we packed it before coming to Dryden) and reinstalled inside the aircraft.

To avoid further problems and to verify our cold temperature suspicions, we decided to add a thermistor  to monitor the temperatures of the pumps for our next flight (yes, we scientists love to know the reason for everything!)

Now, we are ready to go on ATTREX’s  second science flight. Preflight is done. Science meeting was held, and aircraft will be in air on Saturday, February 9^th . Wish us luck!

GWAS pumps outside of aircraft. (pump # 1 guilty as charge!)

A little test before installing the new pump inside the Global Hawk

Day 39 and 40: Second Science Flight: Here we go!

Yes, it is the weekend, but science never stops. Besides, someone told me that Global Hawk stands for Global Holiday And Weekend Killer (LoL!) and I’m starting to believe its true. Thus, are we ready? Let’s Fly…

It is Saturday, Feb 9^th, the Global Hawk 672 took off from Edwards Air Force Base heading to West Pacific Ocean and South to the Equator. I felt the same excitement as I felt on Tuesday, although I was also worried about the behavior of my pumps.

Well, this time I waited until the aircraft reached 40,000 ft. to start the pumps. So far so good, the pressure reading was right, and temperatures were warmed. After 10 min, I was ready to sample our first canister, so, I enabled the button to start my sequence, but I did not see any response in my ground computer. At the same moment I noticed we lost communication with the satellite, thus, I waited a few minutes for it to recover.  Then, communication came back on, but my instrument was still in stand-by. Looking at another screen I noticed there were no current values in our aircraft zone…uh oh AGAIN!!!, AWAS died one more time. But, this time was even worse since I was not able to collect any sample. My frustration reached a boiling point…how could it happen? Did I miss-connect something during pre-flight? I wondered if the new pump thermistor working fine? Ohhh no!!! What a mess…

I decided to leave the Operation Center. I went back to the hotel with tears in my eyes…I exercised, went out for a walk, talk with everyone about the problem just to try to vent my frustration, but it seems like it did not work…I knew it was not the end of the world, but for me it was…Then I realize what the problem was: I LOVE my job! And I care so much about it that I want it to do it well.

Well, here I am waiting for the Global Hawk to land. The pressure is on. We will only have two days to figure out what happened with our instrument and fix the problem before our Third Science flight. Stay tuned.

(No picture here... )

Day 27 to day 31: Scrubbed over so many reasons, but still having fun!

Wow, I do not even know where to start. Last week I mentioned that our first science flight was cancelled due to bad weather. Well, this week we did not have too much luck either. Our flight for Tuesday was cancelled for communication problems, and the one re-scheduled for Wednesday was moved to the next day due to transponder issues. On Thursday we tried one more time, but now, we had synchronization problems between the aircraft and the ground station. By mid-morning they called the flight cancelled. Fortunately, this problem was solved after few hours. So, the same afternoon, we came back to the operation center to set all our instrument computers, but just to find out that we would not be able to transit from Edwards Air Force to the Pacific Ocean on time…so yes! We were double scrubbed (and on the same day!!! just a new record!). Under this circumstance we decided to hold our first Science flight and schedule it for next Tuesday, Feb 5.

In the mean time, we are taking this bad patch with humor and doing something really cool! We were shooting videos for the ATTREX Education and Public Outreach. Our film crew has been wonderful with us. They are the most dedicated and enthusiastic people I ever met. Honestly, they have been really patient, especially with me, since I have to repeat my video many times! I bet the results will be extraordinary. If you have not seen the video they already made for us, take a look… you will be amazed!

http://espo.nasa.gov/missions/attrex-epo/content/ATTREX_Video

Our INCREDIBLE film crew (Diego Beltran and Rafael Mendez) and one of our Scientist (and model) Dr. Jasna Pittman

Film Crew in action!

Day 32: ATTREX Student Visit (A day to remember!)

Without a doubt one of the BEST DAYS of my life!!!...How nice is it to share your experience with those who are interested in your work!

Today, I had the amazing opportunity to talk about ATTREX with kids from the Independence High School (San Jose, CA) and El Camino High School (South San Francisco). Our conversation was very casual. I talked about my experience as part of the ATTREX team, tried to give them some advice about how to become a scientist; and the kids came out with interested questions about how to become part of us. In my opinion these kids have an enormous potential. They are smart, creative, and very eager to learn. I hope my talk gave them the motivation to keep chasing their dreams, be achievers and find success.

Here are some pictures from that day… Thanks for coming Chicos!

Some of the students from the Independence High School (San Jose, CA) and El Camino High School (South San Francisco)

The students next to the Global Hawk

Day 22: Pre-Flight

Today I’m getting ready for my first Science Flight. On day 15, I described a little bit our pre-flight procedure; but different from that time, we are adding some temperature logs around our aircraft zone. The temperature logs are small devices that monitor the temperatures wireless; and once the data is collected we can quickly download it to our computer.

For us, it is very important to have a good estimation of the temperatures around our instruments, because there is a risk of freezing the canisters’ valves if temperatures reach very cold values. Could you imagine this scenario?... it would be impossible for us to open the bottles and collect air samples. But, do not panic!!!! Right now we count with heater cables that keep our instrument warm. It’s just that we need to have a better idea of the ideal temperature to turn our heaters on  and off. 

One of the five temperature log devices we use in AWAS aircraft zone.

Day 23: Science team meeting

Similar to what we did on day 10, today we had our Science team meeting in preparation for our first Science Flight. As I mentioned before, we usually talk about flight plans, science targets and meteorological issues. But, today we also had the opportunity of seeing preliminary results from the Mini-DOAS team. It was interesting to hear how the instruments work (check Max’s blog if you want to have a better idea), and see that their results from the range flight were in reasonable agreement with last year’s data. Way to go Mini-DOAS team!!!

 Today, we also were able to confirm our suspicion…Yes, AWAS will be powered down every time the aircraft descends. Even though it is a little inconvenient for us (yes, we will have to be awake for the 24 hours the flight lasts, as the instrument could need to be powered down at any time) I still believe it would be a wonderful experience. We can find out how our instrument behaves during sequential power switch, and how clean our samples would be after each interruption. As I said it before, the beauty of our work is the fact there is always something new to learn.   

Science team meeting (a lot of smart people together….)

Max Spolaor (from Mini-DOAS team) showing how their instrument works.

Day 24: First Science Flight (CANCELLED)

OMG! yes, there is no other expression…our flight was cancelled. We already knew that this could be happen, as the meteorological data from our science meeting showed the probability of icy conditions. But, still we had the hope of a change to the weather, or at least, proceed with the flight but return before the conditions deteriorate. In any case, I felt that it was not meant to be. My heart was broken…but hey, at least I could go back to sleep and try to recover some “beauty” sleep. 

New schedule for flight: Tuesday Jan 29^th, 2013…stay tuned 

Yes, it looks like we are not going anywhere under this cloudy condition…

The weather looks awful here!

Day 25-26: More data analysis and Media day

The weekend is approaching, but we still have tons of things to do. I started my day by looking at some data from the chemical analysis of our canisters. Last weekend we tested our new gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GC-MS), and here is the fun part: to calculate the area of the peaks provided by this instrument. It is a simple procedure since the location of the peaks and an estimation of the area was previously determined by the software. We just need to double check that those peaks are the correct ones, and that the areas are calculated right (we need precision on our compound concentrations)

In the mean time, I got a little distracted because today was Media day! I was really impressed with the amount of photographers, reporters and videographers who came to the hangar (yes, we are going to be famous!) The interviews were given to our principal investigators, and the hangar looked beautiful surrounded by posters about our instruments and missions. I am not sure where all these media presentations are going to be posted, but I would love to see them. If I find the information I will pass it along, so you can also enjoy the program.

My last news for today, and I believe is one of the most important, is that I’m going to take Sunday off! I’m going to take advantage of this free day and go for a short road trip with my colleagues from Harvard (Jasna Pittman and Bruce Daube). We are heading to Red Rock Canyon and Mt. Whitney!!!...see! Not everything is work…There is also entertainment on the ATTREX mission.

GC-MS Data Analysis

Reporters during Media Day

It’s 03:04 in the morning and, after having completed the last pre-flight operations, the NASA ATTREX Global Hawk is now ready to fly. In fact, some of the payload instruments (such as DLH, HUPCRS, and mini-DOAS) require detailed fine-tuning and calibrations that can be performed only few hours before a takeoff. In the picture you can see the Global Hawk being pulled outside the hangar in preparation for takeoff which is scheduled at 07.00AM. Next blog will be live from the Global Hawk Operation Center!

 

Today, I would like to introduce you to my instrument: mini-DOAS!

You must know that scientists love to use acronyms to name instruments or even experiments (such as the ATTREX mission), so let me spell out for you what mini-DOAS stands for: mini- Differential Optical Absorption Spectrometer. It takes its name from the well established spectroscopic technique (differential optical absorption spectroscopy) used to identify and measure amounts of different gases. So what is mini-DOAS? Mini-DOAS is a remote sensing instrument which uses scattered sunlight in the ultraviolet (UV), visible (VIS), and near-infrared (NIR) spectral range to measure the concentration of atmospheric trace gases such as bromine monoxide (BrO),  ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide  (NO2), oxygen dimer (O4), and water vapor. These trace gases are very important because they contribute to the formation and destruction of ozone in the atmosphere of our planet.

In the picture you can see the mini-DOAS instrument integrated in the payload area of the NASA Global Hawk. Briefly, the main components of our instrument are: a vacuum sealed box containing the spectrometers and the optical fiber bundles connecting them to the telescopes mounted on the outside of the aircraft’s fuselage. It’s important to know that the telescopes have the ability to rotate so that they can point towards different viewing angles and therefore collect more information.