Mission: Helheim-Kangerdlugssuaq Gap B (priority: high)

This mission is designed (along with Helheim-Kangerdlugssuaq Gap A) to refly a 2012 grid over the area of complex terrain between the Helhim and Kangerdlugssuaq Glaciers. Each of these missions alone forms a coast-parallel grid spaced at 20 km, and the two flights together interlace to form a 10-km grid. This particular mission also reoccupies the centerlines of two glaciers in the area (names unknown). This flight retains a high priority for 2016 because it continues an intra-annual time series with the spring and fall 2015 campaigns along these lines.

We had hoped to see clear skies along the west-central portion of the Greenland Ice Sheet today, so that we could have addressed one of our three remaining baseline missions in that area.  Unfortunately much of the soutwestern flank of the ice sheet was covered in an extensive stratus deck this morning and we were unable to dedicate a science flight there as a result.  Instead, we selected this area because (a) skies were clear there except for a few cirrus clouds, (b) this was a high-priority mission, and (c) this mission is suitable for reflight with the Falcon campaign late this summer.  We had to accept the loss of optical data along the clouded, western portions of the east-west transit lines.

All instruments performed normally today, and neither ATM nor DMS experienced unusual fouling of their respective windows from hydraulic fluid.  The rugged topography along the grid lines made terrain-following flight difficult at times, which meant that all instruments had to deal with a large amount of variability in their range to the surface, particularly on the easternmost lines.

Overall, we estimate successful data collection across 95% of the flight.

We conducted a ramp pass over Kangerlussuaq at 2000' AGL.

Data volumes:
ATM: 31 Gb 
FLIR: 3.9 Gb
DMS: 115 Gb 
Ku-Band Radar: 150 Gb
MCoRDS: 2.0 Tb
Snow Radar: 150 Gb
BESST: xx Gb

total data collection time: 7.6 hrs