NASA Gulfstream III and WB-57 supports Texas flood search and rescue efforts
In the aftermath of the catastrophic 4 July floods in Texas Hill Country, NASA deployed two aircraft to assist state and local authorities in ongoing recovery operations.
July 10, 2025
In the aftermath of the catastrophic 4 July floods in Texas Hill Country, NASA deployed two aircraft to assist state and local authorities in ongoing recovery operations.
NASA’s high-altitude WB-57 aircraft departed the NASA Johnson Space Center at Ellington Field in Houston on 8 July to conduct aerial surveys.
Equipped with the DyNAMITE (Day/Night Airborne Motion Imager for Terrestrial Environments) sensors, the aircraft was deployed to collect high-resolution footage of the Guadalupe River and surrounding regions.
The aircraft can fly below cloud layers, which is critical because persistent cloud cover has rendered many satellite images redundant.
The high-resolution imagery collated by the WB-57 aircraft helps pinpoint structural damage, flooded roads and areas. NASA is sharing this data directly with emergency response teams who are then able to respond more effectively to aid decision-making and resource allocation.
Gulfstream III with UAVSAR
In addition to the WB-57, NASA’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) is flying out of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, onboard a Gulfstream III.
This system can “see” through vegetation, revealing submerged terrain and hidden water pockets in the Guadalupe, San Gabriel and Colorado river basins.
The aim is to determine the extent of flooding so that response teams can better understand the amount of damage within communities.
NASA’s aerial mission is part of the agency’s Disasters Response Coordination System, and are being coordinated with the Texas Division of Emergency Management, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the humanitarian groups Save the Children and GiveDirectly.
The resulting data – compromising damage maps and flood data are being uploaded to NASA’s Disasters Mapping Portal for use by rescue teams and relief planners.
The flights are currently scheduled to operate through until the end of Friday 11 July, 2025.
