ESI field scientists McBride and Smith contribute to NASA PACE-PAX feature

ESI scientist Dr. Brent McBride and UMBC ATPH graduate student Rachel Smith contributed to a recent NASA feature article, "PACE-PAX: A Day in the Life of a NASA Field Campaign" on the NASA website. 

The goal of the PACE-PAX mission was to validate the atmospheric, surface, and ocean measurements of the NASA PACE mission. The campaign was a massive effort to collocate spaceborne, airborne, shipborne, and in-water assets over Southern California and the eastern Pacific Ocean from August to October 2024.

Dr. McBride and Ms. Smith, as well as an extended team that included ESI chief engineer Dominik Cieslak, mechanical engineer Ian Decker, systems engineer Danny Nelson, and UMBC ATPH graduate student Noah Sienkiewicz, supported the Airborne Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (AirHARP2) instrument in the field. AirHARP2 is a 1:1 copy of ESI’s HARP2 instrument on the NASA PACE mission. AirHARP2 took data onboard the high-altitude NASA ER-2 research aircraft during the campaign and flew under the PACE spacecraft on several days. On a flight day, ESI personnel made sure the instrument was ready for flight and monitored the instrument health and telemetry during flight. ESI field support also worked with a remote team at UMBC to check the flight data quality and prepare for the next day’s events. 

AirHARP2 data from the PACE-PAX campaign will be publicly available at the NASA LARC DAAC archive on March 31, 2025. 

Photo: UMBC ATPH graduate student Rachel Smith (left) and ESI scientist Dr. Brent McBride (right) test electrical connections on the AirHARP2 instrument inside the ER-2 super-pod during PACE-PAX. Photo Credit: Erica McNamee/NASA