Tuesday, September 3, 2013

NASA aircraft in Houston skies for air pollution study this month

Two NASA aircraft equipped with scientific instruments will fly over the Houston area throughout September as part of a multi-year airborne science mission to help scientists better understand how to measure and forecast air quality from space.

The aircraft are part of NASA's five-year DISCOVER-AQ study, which stands for Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality.

One of the aircraft, a twin-engine Beechcraft 200 King Air (registration N529NA), will collect data for the DISCOVER-AQ study looking downward from an altitude of 26,000 feet. The plane's instruments will look down at the Earth's surface, much like a satellite, and measure particulate and gaseous air pollution.

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