NASA jet to test new radar for detecting ice crystals

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A large NASA jet plans to depart from Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday, hunt for a thunderstorm over the Atlantic and skirt around the edges.

Its mission: Test out a special radar system that should enhance aviation safety by detecting when tiny ice crystals form close to storms. If that ice accumulates in a jetliner’s engines, it could cause a power loss.

“The weather patterns at this time of year make it favorable to fly the plane out of Florida,” said Peter Merlin, spokesman for the project. “We’re looking for storm systems over the ocean with high moisture content.”

Normally based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, Calif., the DC-8 will call Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport home this month because South Florida sees more days with thunderstorms than any other region in the United States.

With a crew of about 24, the four-engine jet is equipped with a load of high-tech sensors and radar systems that have helped scientists do everything from better predict when volcanoes might erupt to finding ancient archaeological sites.

“It’s our flying laboratory and we deploy it all over the world, depending on what particular research it’s doing,” Merlin said.

Now its task is to employ a radar band that can spot “high ice water content,” an atmospheric condition that produces tiny ice particles near storms at high altitude.

Although the ice has caused no aviation accidents, it forced two Boeing 747 freighters to make emergency landings in 2013, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

After making its first research flight Wednesday, the NASA plane will fly two or three days a week, testing the new radar. Eventually, the radar system may be installed on airliners to enhance safety, Merlin said.

“The crew would be able to check the weather ahead and detect conditions that could potentially lead to ice accumulation,” he said.