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>> SPEX is a so-called spectropolarimeter. It
is designed to measure dust particles in the

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atmosphere of the Earth. And it’s an instrument
that has been developed in the Netherlands

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based on a new technology to measure polarization.
Today is our maiden flight.

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[ Music ]

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>> Our engineering team has been working over the past year and a bit more to get it together so that it

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would fit with the ER-2 airplane.

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[ Music/Background noise ]

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>> As this is the
first time that we have been able to connect

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to the aircraft, we had to make sure that
all the electronic equipment was operating,

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and then, of course, you have to connect with
the aircraft on the ground, to see if you

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can communicate with the aircraft, if the
power that is delivered by the aircraft is

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processed properly by the electronic equipment,
and if you can talk to it, because the pilot

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has to switch it on, and you have to check
if, indeed, all those things work, because

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many things can go wrong.

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>> For today, the weather
is good. In general, it’s a good day to

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fly, let’s put it that way. That’s the
flight plan, and everyone’s gotten a chance

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to see the log...

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>> We are very anxious to see
if our instrument can withstand the cold temperatures

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and the low pressures that it’s being exposed
to when it’s up there.

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[ Music/Background noise ]

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>> Today is the day that we’re gonna see if it’s all working. And from there on, we are going for the real

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thing and we’ll do some science with it.

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[ ER-2 taking off ]

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>> This is the attitude you hold all the way up?

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[ Radio chatter ]

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>>...maintain speed.

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>> Ok. Standby for the power...

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...and go for it.

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[ Music ]

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>> Well, this was really exciting, we saw the plane go up with our instrument, and it was really cool. And it

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looks like everything went ok. At the start,
we had to ask the pilot to restart our instrument

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again. But after that, it just stayed, and
functioned nominally, so we could monitor

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the health status of the instrument, and always
looking clear, and most importantly, it didn’t

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give up on us during the flight. So we’re
really happy about it. And now it’s time

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that we have to look at the details- we noticed
that our instrument was a little too cool-

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about ten degrees Celsius below our setting
point, so we have to look into that, and I’m

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really anxious also to get my hands on the
science data, to actually see what light has

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come in, and to see how that looks. So, yeah,
we’re anxious to go to the aircraft, get

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our instrument off, and to start looking,
working on the details. But so far so good.

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We will start setting out specific flights
to address things like air quality, to see