Learn what it takes to study thunderstorms with NASA’s ER-2 aircraft.
Credit: NASA
Credit: NASA
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TechTranscript
00:00 [thunder]
00:06 Airborne science, we study all kinds of different weather.
00:09 Lightning is obviously a very big part.
00:11 [thunder]
00:12 [music]
00:17 First name Alistair, last name Ma.
00:20 Engineer and technician/crew chief.
00:22 It's very exciting to be working with the ER-2.
00:24 My role is to design a flight campaign that can put us over thunderstorms
00:29 as much as possible.
00:31 [thunder]
00:35 We've got to get as much nitrogen out of the system as possible.
00:40 We are hunting for gamma rays from thunderstorms
00:43 known as terrestrial gamma ray flashes.
00:46 So doing this research helps us learn more about how lightning forms
00:50 and reacts with Mother Nature.
00:52 [music]
00:55 [music]
01:05 [thunder]
01:08 We are hunting for gamma rays from thunderstorms.
01:11 These gamma rays can come in two forms.
01:13 One are low energy, long-lived things called glows,
01:18 sort of enhancements in the background radiation.
01:20 And then within those glows you have things known as terrestrial gamma ray flashes,
01:26 or TGFs, and they're very powerful emissions of radiation from thunderstorms.
01:32 In order to go and observe these TGFs, we are using the ER-2 aircraft,
01:37 which is a high altitude, high endurance aircraft.
01:40 So it gives us the ability to fly a distance away
01:44 and stay over those targets of opportunity for a good amount of time
01:49 so that we can make those observations.
01:51 One of the first things we're going to do when we come into work
01:53 is let the instrument teams get about an hour.
01:55 They're going to go through their instruments,
01:57 make sure everything's working correctly, do their pre-flights,
01:59 along with us doing our pre-flight.
02:01 So iSTORM is an instrument to detect gamma rays
02:05 from these energetic events from thunderstorms.
02:09 What we hope to find is to understand the energy of these photons,
02:13 and that gives us insight into the energetic processes
02:17 that happen in these gamma ray flashes.
02:21 Naturally, when they dial in pressure, the head will go up,
02:27 and it will pull this down, or he'll pull it down while he's in the aircraft,
02:31 and it'll bring his head down. That way, you can see it in the cockpit.
02:35 First of all, we pre-flight their suits
02:38 and make sure everything's good, all the leak rates are within tolerance.
02:43 And then when the pilots come down, we'll suit them up,
02:46 and then he has to pre-breathe 100% oxygen.
02:49 We've got to get as much of the nitrogen out of his system as possible.
02:53 That's why he's pre-breathing 100% oxygen for an hour.
02:57 They can develop the bends if they go up too fast.
03:01 Bubbles will form in your veins.
03:04 We're going to tow the aircraft outside.
03:07 We obviously need fuel, which we bring our own fuel tanks for.
03:13 We'll fuel it, and then after we've fueled it, we'll take it over to the launch spot.
03:17 After that, we're going to get the aircraft ready to go, get the pilot inside.
03:25 In addition, we're collecting validation data for NASA Lightning satellites,
03:33 the Lightning imaging sensor on the space station,
03:36 as well as the geostationary Lightning mapper up on geostationary orbit.
03:42 With the success of being able to observe TGFs on this mission,
03:46 it'll be world-known, and the research will help people globally.
03:50 [music]
03:53 [music]
03:56 (dramatic music)