HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — Inside the hanger at NASA Langley is the next generation of airborne research.
A Boeing 777 was acquired to replace and extend the capabilities of the NASA DC-8, which is retiring this year. Originally a passenger airliner, it’s being prepared for its next mission — carrying instruments instead of passengers.
“What airborne science provides is the ability to bring in a very sophisticated instrumentation that, either, isn’t in space,” said Amin Nehrir, a NASA Langley research scientist, “or doesn’t have a pathway to space to make measurements to either complement the measurements in space or help interpret the measurements satellites are making in space.”
With a range of 9,000 nautical miles and a max altitude of 43,000 feet, this new aircraft will allow NASA to continue remote sensing — staying airborne for up to 18 hours.
“Each section’s going to have a station particular to the instrument, whether it’s a LIDAR system or any other sensor that is put together,” said Debbie Martínez, R&D deputy director at NASA Langley, “and so we’ll also have, potentially, a center where they can collaborate and find out, ‘hey, where are we getting our data’ and how we should move,’ and so, all that is in the plans. But right now, we’re getting the aircraft modifications, and get everything up to code.”
Full modifications are expected to be complete by the end of September 2025. Once the aircraft is operational, it will be flown out of the NASA Langley Research Facility in Hampton — so you may see this scientific aircraft in the skies right here over Hampton Roads.
“We do deploy to different parts of the globe to be closer to the areas where we’re scientifically interested in,” Nehrir said, “but this is a unique area in that there’ are’s a lot of, both, processes that affect climate … and also weather processes that can uniquely be sampled here locally. And that helps us reduce operations costs because we’re not traveling.”
