Operation Ice Bridge - Arctic Airborne Topographic Mapper

  • Released Monday, December 9, 2019
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The Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM), developed at NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., is a scanning laser altimeter that measures changes in ice surface elevation. It accomplishes this by reflecting lasers off the ice surface and measuring the time it takes light to return to the aircraft, usually flying between 1000 and 2000 feet above the ground. By combining this timing data with detailed information about the aircraft’s position and attitude from GPS and inertial navigation systems, ATM can measure topography to an accuracy of as small as four inches. By flying ATM over the same swath of ground previously covered by ICESat, researchers can maintain a record of changes.

In addition, the precise data from ATM’s navigation system can be fed to pilot displays in the cockpit or even electronically sent to the automatic pilot system, keeping the aircraft aligned with the planned survey track. This keeps the aircraft along the planned ATM survey swath and also benefits the other IceBridge instruments by minimizing aircraft roll and horizontal acceleration.

The ATM has been participating in NASA's Operation IceBridge since 2009.

4K B-roll of crewmember monitoring FLIR thermal camera during the 2017 Arctic campaign. The camera is a component of the ATM instrument.

NOTE: The audio on this clip varies widely and includes loud aircraft noise. We advise turning down/off sound when previewing this item.

4K B-roll of crewmember monitoring ATM instrument radar during the Arctic 2017 campaign.

NOTE: The audio on this clip varies widely and includes loud aircraft noise. We advise turning down/off sound when previewing this item.

Crewmember monitoring ATM instrument radar during the Arctic 2017 campaign.

NOTE: The audio on this clip varies widely and includes loud aircraft noise. We advise turning down/off sound when previewing this item.

B-roll of Jim Yungel explaining the ATM instrument in the lower portion of the P3-Orion aircraft.

NOTE: The audio on this clip varies widely and includes loud aircraft noise. We advise turning down/off sound when previewing this item.

B-roll of crewmembers monitoring the ATM rack during the 2017 Arctic campaign. Subsequent shots of ATM instrument onboard the P3-Orion aircraft.

NOTE: The audio on this clip varies widely and includes loud aircraft noise. We advise turning down/off sound when previewing this item.

For More Information

See https://icebridge.gsfc.nasa.gov/?page_id=118

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Monday, December 9, 2019.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:45 PM EDT.

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