WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - NASA has issued a warning that to collect air samples, its two research aircraft will make a series of low-altitude atmospheric research flights near Philadelphia, Baltimore, and some Virginia cities, including Richmond, as well as over the Los Angeles Basin, Salton Sea, and Central Valley in California in the next two weeks.
Pilots will operate the aircraft at altitudes lower than typical commercial flights, executing specialized maneuvers such as vertical spirals between 1,000 and 10,000 feet, circling above power plants, landfills, and urban areas. The flights will also include occasional missed approaches at local airports and low-altitude flybys along runways to collect air samples near the surface.
The East Coast flights will be conducted up to June 26 over Baltimore and near Philadelphia, as well as near the Virginia cities of Hampton, Hopewell, and Richmond. The California flights will occur up to July 2.
The flights, part of NASA's Student Airborne Research Program, will involve the agency's Airborne Science Program's P-3 Orion aircraft and a King Air B200 aircraft. The program is an eight-week summer internship program that provides undergraduate students with hands-on experience in every aspect of a scientific campaign.
The P-3, operated out of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, is a four-engine turboprop aircraft outfitted with a six-instrument science payload to support a combined 40 hours of SARP science flights on each U.S. coast. The King Air B200 will fly at the same time in an independent flight profile. Students will assist in the operation of the science instruments on the aircraft to collect atmospheric data, NASA said in a press release.
Copyright(c) 2025 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2025 AFX News
