Mission 3

ER-2 Sortie 00-149

Tuesday, August 22, 2000

Michael King: Flight Scientist

Objectives: To fly the ER-2 over the Limpopo River and then down the entire length of Kruger National Park from 23°S, 38°05’E to 25°50’S, 31°33’E along the descending orbit of Terra (heading of 192.8°), overflying Skukuza at the time of the Terra overpass at 0828 UTC. The ER-2 then cut across Swaziland and flew a southerly flight track over Durnacol coal mines in Kwazulu-Natal, before proceeding north and turning to overfly the Witbank coal-fired power plants of the highveld. Numerous passes of the ER-2 were made over Johannesburg so that detailed photos could be taken with the RC10 camera, followed by a single pass over Pretoria before heading back to Pietersburg.

Skies were entirely devoid of cloud cover, but were exceedingly hazy north and east of Pietersburg, including the lowveld of Kruger National Park. The sky was somewhat polluted over Johannesburg, but considerably less hazy than over the lowveld to the east.

The mission was coordinated with the CV-580 over Skukuza at the time of the Terra overpass, with JRA over a prescribed burn in Satara, and later with JRB over Witbank and downtown Johannesburg.

ER-2 Mission: Pilot: Jim Barrilleaux

Takeoff 0725 UTC

Landing 1155 UTC

Duration 4:30

The RC-10 camera was turned on for flights over the Limpopo River, Kruger National Park, Durnacol, Witbank, Johannesburg, and Pretoria.

Instrument Status

AirMISR – not on plane; being repaired

CLS – lidar worked properly, but navigation data not recorded

LAS – failed prior to take off

MAS – worked well

MOPITT-A –worked well

S-HIS – not installed on aircraft due to instrument problem in interferometer

SSFR – worked well

Meteorology: A detached cell of high pressure lay over the Northern Province, whilst the complex low pressure system to the south continued to move away from the country in a southeasterly direction. Aloft, a weak ridge lay over the northern parts of South Africa between the old trough that has weakened and moved eastwards.

Fine, and generally cloud free weather over the northern and northeastern parts of South Africa with partly cloudy regions over the central and southern areas. The Congo air boundary moved into the extreme northwestern regions of Zambia and some showers and isolated thunderstorms is expected in these parts.

Instruments:

AirMISR – Airborne Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer

CLS – Cloud Lidar System

LAS - Leonardo Airborne Simulator

MAS – MODIS Airborne Simulator

MOPITT-A – MOPITT Airborne Simulator

S-HIS – Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder

SSFR – Solar Spectral Flux Radiometer

ER-2 Ground Track:

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