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NASA plane expected to soon buzz over the Central Valley
NASA plane
NASA’s P-3 Orion aircraft, based out of the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, along with Dynamic Aviation’s King Air B200 aircraft, will fly over parts of the East and West coasts during the agency’s Student Airborne Research Program. The science flights will be conducted between June 22 and July 2, 2025. - photo by Contributed

Two NASA research aircraft will make a series of low-altitude atmospheric research flights over Central Valley from June 29 to July 2.

The flights support NASA’s longstanding Student Airborne Research Program (SARP), an eight-week summer internship that provides undergraduates with hands-on experience in every aspect of a scientific campaign.

Pilots will operate NASA’s P-3 Orion aircraft (N426NA) and a King Air B200 aircraft (N46L) owned by Dynamic Aviation and contracted by NASA at altitudes lower than typical commercial flights, executing specialized maneuvers such as vertical spirals between 1,000 and 10,000 feet, circling above power plants, landfills, and urban areas. The flights also will include occasional missed approaches at local airports and low-altitude flybys along runways to collect air samples near the surface.

The Central Valley isn’t the only part of the country where these flights will take place. NASA said other areas include near Philadelphia, Baltimore, and some Virginia cities, including Richmond, as well as 

the Los Angeles Basin and Salton Sea.

The P-3, operated out of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, is a four-engine turboprop aircraft outfitted with a six-instrument science payload to support a combined 40 hours of SARP science flights on each U.S. coast. The King Air B200 will fly at the same time as the P-3 but in an independent flight profile. Students will assist in the operation of the science instruments on the aircraft to collect atmospheric data.

“The SARP flights have become mainstays of NASA’s Airborne Science Program, as they expose highly competitive STEM students to real-world data gathering within a dynamic flight environment,” said Brian Bernth, chief of flight operations at NASA Wallops.

“Despite SARP being a learning experience for both the students and mentors alike, our P-3 is being flown and performing maneuvers in some of most complex and restricted airspace in the country,” said Bernth. “Tight coordination and crew resource management is needed to ensure that these flights are executed with precision but also safely.”