One of the things I’m most interested in in the the data we’re collecting on the ATom mission is new particle formation in the atmosphere. This is a process, also called nucleation, is where molecules in the gas phase come together under the right conditions to form liquid or solid particles. It’s been observed all over… More Why I’m interested in atmospheric new particle formation
When I first started working in scientific research I was surprised by how exciting and often glamorous it felt. From the thrill of being around ground-breaking discoveries at CERN, to taking measurements on remote stations on the tops of mountains, to working with NOAA and NASA and traveling round the world in a flying lab. I certainly hadn’t… More Why I blog about my work as a scientist
The DC-8 arrived back at base at NASA Armstrong last Tuesday and I flew down to meet it. Standing in the Californian desert sun, watching it land was a big moment – the successful completion of the first part of the mission! As everyone came of the plane there were handshakes and slaps on… More ATom1 de-integration
You may be wondering what I’ll be doing for the rest of the ATom 1 mission now that I’m back at base in Colorado. As I watched the plane leave Hawaii and went from the mission-bubble surrounded by scientists and crew to interact with, daily maintenance, scheduled access and preparations for the next flight etc. to… More Back at Base
The other day I had a unique and difficult experience. I was on the tarmac at Kona International Airport, Hawaii, and I watched the DC8 take-off, with all my colleagues, our crew and my instruments on board. This wasn’t planned, and no, I hadn’t just missed my flight. Somewhere between California and Alaska I caught… More Discretion is the better part of Valor
We had a gently warm morning for takeoff to Hawaii, with sun peaking through the clouds. Getting above the clouds we had spectacular views of snow capped peaks. We made a missed approach at Cold Point, population 109 at the last census. Low clouds prevented us from seeing too much there visually, but through the… More From Pines to Palms
The title of this post is borrowed from Phillip Pullman’s prequel to his Dark Materials trilogy. I loved these books as a child, and by happy coincidence ended up studying for my masters at the college on which Jordan College in the novels is based. The reference to journeys northward and parallels with searching for… More Once Upon a Time in the North
Today was the first real science flight of the mission. Driving down to the base at 4am, Mumford and Sons’ ‘Cave’ blasting through the stereo, I definitely felt excited (and a little sleepy). On-board we powered up the instruments and ran through our pre-flight checklist. We’d made some changes the previous day to allow an… More There and back again – ATom goes to the equator
Having integrated our instruments onto the DC8-8, and tested them in the hangar the only thing left to do before the mission proper was see how everything performed in flight. First, the crew conducted a shakedown flight without scientists just to check that everything was integrated safely, and then we went up for our first… More Test Flights
Last week I came down to NASA Armstrong with a couple of colleagues to integrate our instruments onto the plane for our upcoming round-the-world summer flight mission, ATom (the Atmospheric Tomography Mission). The plane is based at the NASA Armstrong flight research center in California. The base is a huge hangar, housing the DC-8 (the plane… More ATom Integration