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ER-2 Flight: 97047

Date: February 9, 1997

Mission: Snow detection over instrumented sites in New England (Hall). Thick cloud BRDF.

Mission Objectives

Overfly instrumented sites near Oneonta NY, Keene NH, and Harvard Forest MA for clear scene snow detection. Fly into solar plane with thick cloud below over Lake Superior. Overfly ground instrumentation: Park Falls CO site, Trout Lake, Fort McCoy, snow emissivity measurements with down-looking AERI at Madison and instruments at SSEC.

Flight Summary

Take-off was at 1600 UTC with landing at 2145 UTC.

ER-2 left Madison and directly to NY site. Arrived around 1733 UTC for data collection close to solar noon. Flew New Hampshire legs and did flyover of Massachussettes site before returning to NY site. Ground instruments deployed during ER-2 overflight along with small aircraft overflight. ER-2 then flew towards NE Lake Superior, passing over Scele Canadian Ag station on the way. Had mid-level thick clouds for flight line into sun over Lake Superior. Pilot reported MAS instrument failure on this line and was instructed to return to base if unable to bring MAS back up. MAS problem noted in Instrument Status section.

Highlights

Clear scenes over New England snow sites for D. Hall snow detection objective.

Instrument Status

Modis Airborne Simulator (MAS): Operated, data collected until 20:02:14 UTC (failure on 2nd Exabyte tape). 1st tape good data.
Cloud Lidar System (CLS): Operated, data collected. Data recorder stopped recording at 17:50 UTC. No apparent laser problem.
High-Resolution Interferometer Sounder (HIS): Failed, no data collected.
Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (MIR): Operated in scanning mode, data collected.
Tilt Scan CCD Camera (TSCC): Operated, failed after 36 minutes of data collection. Shutter malfunction.
RC-10 Camera: Operated over clear scenes (black and white - 6 and 12 inch lens).

Additional Pilot Notes:. D. Hall lines near Keene, NH: 1st line had some thin cirrus, 2nd line was clear, 3rd had about 5% coverage thin cirrus near nadir. Lake Ontario clear scenes from 1902 to 1907 and 1912 to 1913. Lake Huron clear scenes from 1941 to 1947. MAS and EO turned on during ascent at 1618 to view clear Lake MI scenes. Altitude about 40K.