DC-8a Altimeter Provides Polar Ice Breakthrough

By Michael Mecham mecham@aviationweek.com
San Francisco

NASA’s DC-8 Icebridge mission has used a laser altimeter to provide high-fidelity measurements of snow thickness on sea ice and to penetrate ice sheets covering the South Pole to a depth of 10 km. (6.2 mi.).

The flights, which wound up for the season last weekend, are staged from Punta Arenas, Chile, and bridge a data gap in Antarctic ice studies that opened up when NASA lost its ...

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