How a NASA Science Flight is No Ordinary Journey
A group of scientists and pilots conducted a series of science flights over Western Colorado for a new five-year NASA-led airborne mission called SnowEx.
SnowEx is exploring better ways to measuring how much water is stored in snow-covered regions with the goal of eventually creating a future snow satellite mission. More accurate snow measurements will help scientists and decisions-makers better understand our world’s water supply and better predict floods and droughts.
Data acquired from the SnowEx campaign will be stored at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, and will be available to anyone to order at no cost, as is the case with all NASA data.
For more information:
NASA's SnowEx Challenges the Sensing Techniques...'Until They Break'
NASA: Snow Science in Support of Our Nation's Water Supply
Complete transcript available.
Music credit: “Time Shift Equalibrium” by Ben Niblett [PRS] and Jon Cotton [PRS] from Killer Tracks Music
Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.
For More Information
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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Scientists
- Albert Wu (ATA Aerospace)
- Edward Kim (NASA/GSFC)
- Eugenia De Marco (ATA Aerospace)
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Producer
- Joy Ng (KBRwyle)
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Videographers
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Technical support
- Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Related pages
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ID: 14351 Produced Video
The Science of Snow: Digging for Data
Read moreComplete transcript available. || It takes a lot of field work in challenging conditions to gather important snow data. This is the story of NASA’s last SnowEx campaign and those who participated in it. In March, scientists traveled to research sites in the northern tundra and in Fairbanks, Alaska. Ground crews looked to validate data collected from airborne instruments, while the flight crews continued collecting snow data in order to see what instruments best measure snow globally. The goal for SnowEx is to determine the best remote-sensing techniques for a potential future satellite. Snow data is extremely important and can tell us things like how much spring runoff can be expected, which is vital for water resource management.Music credit: “Atmospheres” “Big Ocean Small World” “Avalanches” and “Machine Melody” from Universal Production Music ||
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ID: 13820 Produced Video
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Read moreMusic: "Beautiful Serenity," "Frozen Waves," Universal Production Music.This video can be freely shared and downloaded. While the video in its entirety can be shared without permission, some individual imagery provided by pond5.com and Boise State University and is obtained through permission and may not be excised or remixed in other products. Specific details on stock footage may be found here. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html.Complete transcript available.Notes on footage:0:31 - 3:28 provided by Matt Crook/Boise State University3:28 - 3:36 provided by pond5.com ||
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ID: 12848 Produced Video
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NASA Studies Snow At The Winter Olympics
Read moreThis Winter Olympics, NASA will be studying how well researchers can measure snow from the ground and space and provide better data for snowstorm predictions. NASA will make these observations as one of 20 agencies from eleven countries in a project led by the Korean Meteorological Administration called the International Collaborative Experiments for PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, or ICE-POP. NASA.gov feature: NASA Seeks the Gold in Winter Olympics Snow || Complete transcript available.Music credit: “Reach Into The Night” by Andrew Michael Britton [PRS], David Stephen Goldsmith [PRS], Mikey Rowe [PRS] and “Progressive Practice” by Emmanuel David Lipszyc [SACEM], Franck Lascombes [SACEM], Sebastien Charles Lipszyc [SACEM] From Killer TracksWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. ||
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ID: 12511 Produced Video
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NASA Investigates Water Supply in Snow
Read moreThis February, a NASA-led research campaign called SnowEx kicked off in Colorado. The 5-year study will advance global measurements of how much snow is on the ground at any given time and how much liquid water is contained in that snow. The amount of water in snow plays a huge role in water availability for drinking water, agriculture, and hydropower.Teams of 50 researchers are stationed at Grand Mesa and Senator Beck Basin over a three-week period to measure snow using a variety of snow-sensing instruments and techniques. Ground measurements will allow the team to validate the remotely sensed measurements acquired by multiple sensors on the various aircraft.Data acquired from the SnowEx campaign will be stored at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, and will be available to anyone to order at no cost, as is the case with all NASA data. For more information: https://www.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions/ ||
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ID: 12496 B-Roll
SnowEx Field Campaign: 4K B-roll From The P-3 Orion Aircraft
Read moreSnowEx is a NASA led multi-year research campaign to improve measurements of how much snow is on the ground at any given time and how much liquid water is contained in that snow.Five aircraft with a total of ten different sensors will participate in the SnowEx campaign. From a base of operations at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, SnowEx will deploy a P-3 Orion aircraft operated by the Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS-1), based at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. A King Air plane will fly out of Grand Junction, Colorado, while high-altitude NASA jets will fly from Johnson Space Center in Houston.The planes will carry passive and active microwave sensors that are good at measuring snow-water equivalent in dry snow, but are less optimal for measuring snow forests or light snow cover. The campaign will also deploy an airborne laser instrument to measure snow depth, and airborne sensors to measure surface temperature and reflected light from snow.Data acquired from the SnowEx campaign will be stored at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, and will be available to anyone to order at no cost, as is the case with all NASA data.For more information: https://www.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions ||
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ID: 12489 B-Roll
SnowEx Field Campaign: B-roll From The P-3 Orion Aircraft
Read moreSnowEx is a NASA led multi-year research campaign to improve measurements of how much snow is on the ground at any given time and how much liquid water is contained in that snow.Five aircraft with a total of ten different sensors will participate in the SnowEx campaign. From a base of operations at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, SnowEx will deploy a P-3 Orion aircraft operated by the Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS-1), based at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. A King Air plane will fly out of Grand Junction, Colorado, while high-altitude NASA jets will fly from Johnson Space Center in Houston. The planes will carry passive and active microwave sensors that are good at measuring snow-water equivalent in dry snow, but are less optimal for measuring snow forests or light snow cover. The campaign will also deploy an airborne laser instrument to measure snow depth, and airborne sensors to measure surface temperature and reflected light from snow.Data acquired from the SnowEx campaign will be stored at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, and will be available to anyone to order at no cost, as is the case with all NASA data.For more information: https://www.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions ||
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ID: 12490 B-Roll
SnowEx Field Campaign: B-roll From Grand Mesa
Read moreSnowEx is a NASA led multi-year research campaign to improve measurements of how much snow is on the ground at any given time and how much liquid water is contained in that snow.Starting in February, teams of 50 researchers are stationed at Grand Mesa and Senator Beck Basin over a three-week period to measure snow using a variety of snow-sensing instruments and techniques.Ground measurements will allow the team to validate the remotely-sensed measurements acquired by the multiple sensors on the various aircraft.Data acquired from the SnowEx campaign will be stored at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, and will be available to anyone to order at no cost, as is the case with all NASA data. For more information: https://www.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions/ ||
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