A Low-Flying Plane Will Count What Rises Off Texas Farmland

NASA will fly a Dynamic Aviation A200 aircraft on low-altitude research flights over farmland near Transit, Texas, from 22 October through 9 November, measuring gaseous and particulate emissions from animal feeding operations. The FarmFlux mission puts more than a dozen sensors in the air to watch ozone, methane, ammonia, particulates and other pollutants rising from crop lands and livestock farms — and how they interact with the atmosphere.

Two and a half weeks of flying over one patch of Texas is a narrow window for a broad question, and a plane is an odd-looking farm instrument compared with a soil probe or a fence-line monitor. It is also the only way to sample what has already left the ground. The nearest named landmark in the notice is a place called Transit, which seems like a decent omen for a mission about things that travel.