2017-07-17: Autonomy Incubator Makes Historic OWLETS Flight Over Chesapeake Bay

The Ai's Jim Nielan and Danette Allen were present for CBBT ops
along with Ryan Hammitt, Eddie Adcock, Mark Motter, and Zak Johns.

The OWLETS (Ozone Water-Land Environmental Transition Study) mission officially began with its maiden voyage over the Chesapeake Bay this morning, making the Autonomy Incubator and NASA Langley's earth scientists the first team to ever measure ozone levels directly on the land-water transition. Hive Three, one of our four Hive vehicles, carried an ozone monitor and four CICADA gliders from the Naval Research Library to take meteorological data.

Today's event was only the first of many OWLETS flights, all of which will take off from the third island of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (CBBT).

In addition to Hive-3 and its suite of sensors, NASA Langley also deployed a weather balloon and a lidar trailer to study atmospheric composition near the land-water transition.

The lidar trailer uses two high-powered lasers to determine
atmospheric composition.

The weather balloon also takes ozone and meteorological data,
but follows wind patterns instead of flying a set route.

Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage as this historic mission continues! Who knows, maybe our social media intern will be out there reporting from the field sometime soon. Until then, check out this video of one of the final practice missions, which we flew right here at NASA Langley: