Aug 14 2000
From The Space Library
The Southern African Regional Science Initiative (SAFARI 2000) officially commenced in South Africa's Northern Province, with the gathering of scientists from 14 nations and six South African universities. NASA, alongside the University of Witwatersrand, led SAFARI 2000, their goal to "determine how the region's natural ecosystems and human land use affect air quality and atmospheric conditions." The initiative would use specially equipped planes to make four scientific flights each week, over a six-week period, through September 2000. A modern ER-2 version of the U-2 spy plane would fly directly under the Terra satellite as it passed over various regions of southern Africa, to verify the satellite's data. Three other aircraft would also fly with the ER-2 "like a stack of pancakes," with the ER-2 flying at about 65,000 feet (19,800 meters) to conduct remote sensing, a Convair 580 aircraft collecting air and gas samples just below the ER-2, and two Aerocommander 690A aircraft conducting similar tests at between 5,000 and 12,000 feet (1,500 and 3,700 meters).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
