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[Music]

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>>During June 2017, a team of NASA and university
scientists conducted the Convective Processes

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Experiment, also known as CPEX.

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Using a suite of instruments onboard NASA's
DC-8 flying laboratory, scientists collected

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data on wind, temperature, and humidity around
the subtropical waters of Florida.

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[Music]

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The campaign had two primary goals- to better
understand the growth and decay of convective

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clouds, and to demonstrate wind measurement
from space using a NASA wind lidar instrument,

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called DAWN, in anticipation of the European
Space Agency's AEOLUS satellite, which is

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due for launch in 2018.

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>>The wind lidar is a laser beam, it doesn't
diverge like a radar beam, so it's very small

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illumination volume, it's pointed downward,
in the case of the DC-8 here.

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So we're profiling below the aircraft, and
we achieve the wind measurements by looking

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at the winds from several different directions.

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>>Each day during the campaign, the science
team conducted weather briefings to determine

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if conditions were favorable for observing
convective activity and where their potential

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target locations would be.

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Once the team decided that weather conditions
were right, a preflight briefing was held

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to go over the mission objectives and the
flight path.

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[Music/Airplane Taking off]

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The CPEX team flew a total of sixteen science
flights over the course of the campaign, ranging

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from six to eight hours in duration.

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In addition to lidar, radar, and radiometer
instruments, the team also used dropsondes

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that collected data from inside the storm
or storm system being studied.

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>>Fire in the hole.

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[Music]

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>>Three...two...one...go!

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[Suction]

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>>This is called a dropsonde, where you have
an electronic weather station that falls ballistically

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from the plane; so you drop it out and it
falls and it transmits back its position,

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based on its GPS, and so we get the wind speed
and direction that way, and then it has very

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accurate sensors for temperature and humidity
and pressure and sea surface temperature,

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so right before it splashes, it gets the sea
surface temperature.

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It's measuring about seven different things
all at once, and when it hits the water, it's

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gone.

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[Music]

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>>Data collected from the CPEX mission will
advance understanding of the atmosphere and

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help improve the accuracy of weather and climate
models.

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[Music/Airplane Landing]