Michael Winter of NASA's Ames Research Center, principal investigator for the SLIT spectrogratph, installs his instrument in a framework behind an optical window on NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory for the Hayabusa re-entry imaging mission.
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Mission: Hayabusa Re-entry Imaging
Michael Winter of NASA’s Ames Research Center, principal investigator for the SLIT spectrograph, installed his instrument in a framework behind an optical window on NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory for the Hayabusa re-entry imaging mission. An international team monitored the final plunge of Hayabusa to Earth using NASA’s DC-8 airborne laboratory, which was managed and piloted by a crew from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA. The DC-8 flew above most clouds, allowing an unfettered line of sight for its instrument suite measuring the shock-heated gas and capsule surface radiation emitted by the re-entry fireball.June 7, 2010NASA/ Tom Tschida