ER-2 Flight: 039021

Date: Dec 10, 2002

Mission: Terra Cloud mission.

Mission Objectives

Collect thin cirrus scenes over Gulf of Mexico w/Terra (1704 UTC) to assess MODIS Cloud Product performance.

Flight Summary

Take-off at 1530 UTC.  ER-2 landed at 1825 UTC.

ER-2 flew east from SAT to Houston then south to racetrack in the western Gulf of Mexico.  Racetrack consisted of two 16 minute legs separated by 12 nm and oriented parallel to Terra orbital track.  Flew eastern leg on southbound, then returned on western leg.  Skies are undercast strato-cumulus on both legs with some cirrus wisps at southern quarter of western leg (few at bottom of eastern leg too).   On 2nd orbit, cirrus coverage increased on both legs but still limited mostly to southern third of western leg.  Met Terra (1704 UTC) on southbound (eastern) leg of 2nd orbit (about 9 deg offnadir view away from sun) with low overcast and cirrus wisp as shown by CPL.  CPL also documented larger cirrus wisp at 1706 UTC.  After finishing 2nd orbit of racetrack, ER-2 turned to return to SAT.

Highlights

Wispy cirrus over uniform stratus w/Terra.  Single layer stratus w/Terra over water.

Instrument Status

Note: NAV recorder failure; no RS-232 or IRIG data collected during the flight.

Additional Pilot Notes: Strong crosswinds at altitude.  No turbulence.  Elevated haze layer apparent when looking from oblique angle.