Documenting Land, Sea, and Air Around the Pacific Rim

The most volcanically active region in the world will be center stage for a comprehensive NASA Earth-observing mission runs from August through October. The PacRim 2000 Mission will fly over and around the Pacific Rim with several instruments including radar and imaging spectroradiometers. PacRim 2000 is a follow-up to the PacRim 1996 mission.

The PacRim 2000 Mission includes observations of many sites in more than 10 countries around the Pacific Rim. The mission begins and ends in California, and the flight plan is depicted by the lines on the map. click for enlarged view showing locations and schedule (Map courtesy of Chris Jennison, Mission Project Manager, Airborne Science Directorate, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center)		The prehistoric monumental site of the Marquesas, the tribal feast place (tohua) of the Ta'aoa valley (Hiva Oa Island) in French Polynesia, from the 1996 AIRSAR mission. This photograph was taken by investigators on the ground team.
The city of Angkor, Cambodia, as acquired by the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) from the space shuttle Endeavour on September 30, 1994. The city houses an ancient complex of more than 60 temples dating back to the 9th century. Angkor Wat, is the bright square just left of the center of the image. It is surrounded by a reservoir that appears in this image as a thick black line. The larger bright square above Angkor Wat is another temple complex called Angkor Thom. Archeologists studying this image believe the blue-purple area slightly north of Angkor Thom may be previously undiscovered structures.		This three-dimensional perspective view of the volcanic island of Manam, Papua New Guinea, was obtained by NASA's AIRSAR system in its topographic (TOPSAR) mode onboard a DC-8 aircraft on November 16, 1996.

Contacts:
Alan Brown, Public Affairs
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center
Phone: (661) 276-2665, alan_brown@mail.dfrc.nasa.gov

Christopher Jennison, Mission Project Manager
Airborne Science Directorate, Dryden Flight Research Center
Phone: (661) 276-2520, chris_jennison@mail.dfrc.nasa.gov
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/airsci/index.html

Ellen O'Leary, AIRSAR Science Coordinator
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Phone: (818) 354-7250, ellen.oleary@jpl.nasa.gov

Science Goals:

• gathering geographic and atmospheric data for coastal analysis and oceanography, forestry, geology, hydrology, archaeology, and volcanology
• image river basins that suffered impacts from upriver mining
• compile data on minerals, biomass quantity in forests, and earthquake-generated landslides
• determine how changing forest environments relate to greenhouse gas production
• survey archaeological sites
• observe and measure cloud properties, land vegetation and other land surface features, including: surface mineralogy, soil properties, surface temperature, and landscape topography
• measure urban sprawl
• measure volcanic emissions

Infrastructure:
NASA Dryden's Douglas DC-8-72 Aircraft, a four-jet engine aircraft, will carry MASTER and AIRSAR. MASTER is MODIS/ASTER, a combination of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). MODIS and ASTER are two components also aboard the NASA Terra Satellite, part of NASA's Earth Observing System. AIRSAR was developed by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). This advanced radar technology is an all-weather imaging tool able to penetrate through clouds and collect data at night. NASA Ames will process the data collected from the mission.

Schedule:
The mission began July 31 with a take off from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The mission will end on Oct. 23 with a flight from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, back to Dryden. The PacRim 2000 mission calendar and flight plan are available on the website: http://airsar.jpl.nasa.gov

Primary Location(s):
The Pacific Rim, including the countries of New Zealand, French Polynesia, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, the U.S. Pacific Territories, Vietnam, Thailand, and Korea.