The University of Wyoming King Air (UWKA) research aircraft is one of three airborne facilities for the research and education community of atmospheric sciences supported by the National Science Foundation. Because of its agile maneuverability and relatively inexpensive operational cost, UWKA is the most frequently requested airborne facility for cloud, precipitation, atmospheric chemistry, wildfires, and boundary layer meteorology research and education. This Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-1 Implementation project aims to modernize the aging UWKA by building a state-of-art airborne atmospheric research and education laboratory (UWKA-2) on a new King Air aircraft that has the same agility and cost-effectiveness. These technologies will become an integral part of the NSFs Lower Atmospheric Observing Facility. The advanced airborne in-situ and remote sensing measurement capabilities are critical for validation and refinement of algorithms used in space-borne measurements and providing observational constraints on numerical models for weather, climate, air quality, and wildfire predictions, and supporting many federal agencies' missions, such as those of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Interior (DOI), and the Department of Defense (DOD). The modernized instrument suite, extra payload capability, a longer flight range, and advanced communications will enable innovative observations and education in Arctic science that addresses the NSF's Navigating the New Arctic Big Idea. The new capabilities of real time access to the platform and instruments during field experiments will allow special educational deployments and enable students, early career scientists from many universities, and K-12 students/teachers to remotely participate in field campaigns.
There are five components in this NSF Mid-scale Research Infrastructure Implantation project: (i) Convert the baseline aircraft to airborne research platform that involves mission-specific and research-specific aircraft modifications and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification; (ii) Upgrade airborne millimeter-wave radars to allow vertical-plane dual-doppler capability both below and above flight level, and dual frequency profiling capability for measurements of both rain and cloud droplets; (iii) Build airborne lidar capabilities based on Raman and Doppler lidar technologies for remote sensing of temperature, humidity, aerosols, and 3-dimensional wind profiles; (iv) Assemble an updated instrument package for measurements of trace gases and aerosols to support atmospheric chemistry research; and (v) Develop a novel ground-aircraft communication system with real-time analysis/display capabilities for education, training, and flight management.
This project is supported by the Foundation-wide Mid-scale Research Infrastructure program with co-funding from the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and the Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences/Directorate for Geosciences. The project will be managed by the Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences within the Directorate for Geosciences.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
