News

Reserve wing assists NASA

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Nick Przybyciel
  • 446th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
MCCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  An aircrew of five Reservists from the 313th Airlift Squadron here supported NASA May 5-7 by flying a pair of cutting-edge radar apertures and support equipment to Thule, Greenland.

The two radar units are intended to monitor global climate change by mapping Earth's surface topography and the deformations in it. If not for the efforts of the 446th Airlift Wing, the two months of scheduled flight testing in Greenland may never have gotten off the ground.

NASA was initially turned down for support by Air Mobility Command due to continuing requirements in Southwest Asia, so NASA turned directly to the 446th AW for help.

"This is a pretty common situation. Agencies who may have traditionally received AMC/TACC mission support now find themselves without airlift, so they ask Air Force Reserve Command for help," said Lt. Col. Ben Morley, 446th Operations Support Flight chief of current operations. "Assuming we can generate an aircraft, we try our best to help these folks out."

Colonel Morley noted that both organizations benefit from these missions: The government agency gets free airlift support that is critical to performing its mission, while the 446th AW gains invaluable experience by flying to areas where crews normally don't have the opportunity to train.

The wing has a long and prolific history of supporting scientific agencies like NASA. Due to the cargo carrying capacities of the C-17 Globemaster III and its predecessor, the C-141 Starlifter, Reserve aircrews have in the past supported the National Science Foundation and Homeland Security, among others.

For this particular mission, scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Dryden Flight Research Center will test two radar units flown on a pod beneath a Gulfstream III aircraft. The radars, known as the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, and the Glacier and Land Ice Surface Topography Interferometer, work by penetrating microwave energy into glaciers, ice streams, and ice-covered topography.

"We hope to better characterize how Arctic ice is changing and how climate change is affecting the Arctic, while gathering data that will be useful for designing future radar satellites," said UAVSAR Principal Investigator Scott Hensley of JPL.

Aside from helping map climate change, the radar units will aid in designing future Earth ice topography missions and even missions to map ice on other celestial bodies.

When testing is complete in early July, another crew of Reservists from the 446th AW will return to Greenland to bring home the NASA team and its gear.