![NASA Research Aircraft to Conduct Low-Altitude Missions Over Houston Area This Week]](https://i2.wp.com/www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ed07-0027-56large.jpg?ssl=1 "NASA Research Aircraft to Conduct Low-Altitude Missions Over Houston Area This Week]")
NASA Research Aircraft to Conduct Low-Altitude Missions Over Houston Area This Week]
Five research aircraft will support a Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) mission operating from Ellington Field in Houston. Flight operations are scheduled from Wednesday, June 3 through Saturday, June 13, with select maneuvers conducted at low altitudes over the Houston metropolitan area.
The missions will employ remote sensing payloads flown in raster patterns, or parallel back-and-forth lines, to help researchers map atmospheric gas and particle movement, changes in the lowest layer of the atmosphere near the coast, and natural processes affecting local land and water systems.
A WP-3D Orion aircraft operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will conduct flights as low as 1,000 feet above ground level. This hurricane-hunter aircraft, used extensively by NASA for airborne science missions, carries multiple scientific instruments, radars, and recording systems for atmospheric and environmental measurements.
Additional NASA-operated aircraft equipped with remote sensing instruments—including two lidars, synthetic-aperture radar, an imaging spectrometer, and dual spectrometers—will participate in the mission. These include NASA’s Gulfstream V (N95NA), Gulfstream C-20A (N802NA), and Gulfstream III (N520NA), along with NOAA’s WP-3D Orion (N43RF) and a King Air B200 (N46L) operated by Dynamic Aviation under contract to NASA.
The flights can be tracked in real time through the NASA Airborne Science Program Tracker.
SARP is an eight-week summer internship program providing undergraduate students with hands-on research experience and access to NASA’s flying science laboratories.