NASA’s 6 aircraft MAGEQ flights build first integrated dataset on greenhouse gases and air quality
September 25, 2025
When six aircraft criss-crossed the skies over the eastern United States this summer, most people looking up saw little more than planes against a blue horizon.
But inside those aircraft, teams of scientists were quietly gathering data that could shape how communities respond to pollution, climate change, and even public health challenges.
The project, called MAGEQ – Mid-Atlantic Gas Emissions Quantification – was not a single mission but a coordinated campaign led by NASA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the University of Maryland Baltimore County, alongside a dozen other universities and government partners.
The aircraft NASA uses to collect atmospheric data
Over six weeks, six different aircraft flew more than 400 hours above cities, farms, wetlands, and mining areas to measure gases and track how air quality is changing. The aircraft involved in MAGEQ include:
- ASA P-3 Orion (Wallops Flight Facility) – the workhorse of the campaign, flying long endurance missions to map air quality across wide areas and at multiple altitudes.
- NOAA DHC-6 Twin Otter – operated low-level flights over wetlands and farmland, directly sampling air for trace gases such as methane and carbon dioxide.
- NASA Beechcraft B-200 “Flux” (Langley) – specialised in measuring gas fluxes and boundary-layer chemistry close to the surface.
- NASA Gulfstream III (C-20B) – provided remote sensing at higher altitudes, gathering data to cross-check satellite measurements and expand regional coverage.
- NASA Beechcraft A90 King Air (G-LiHT platform) – equipped with the Goddard LiDAR, Hyperspectral & Thermal Imager (G-LiHT), this aircraft mapped vegetation and land-air interactions in the Shenandoah Valley and other target zones.
- Contracted King Air B200 (Dynamic Aviation) – added extra capacity for regional flights, supporting low-altitude sampling legs and filling data gaps between the larger aircraft.
Each aircraft had a different task. Some carried sensors to take a satellite-eye view of the atmosphere, flying high above the clouds. Others swooped closer to the ground, directly sampling the air for pollutants such as methane and carbon dioxide. Together, the measurements built a layered picture of how gases move between the land, air, and atmosphere.
“The complexity comes in identifying how each platform can complement or supplement the others,” explained Glenn Wolfe, project lead for MAGEQ at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The challenge was not only technical. Teams had to plan flights around storms, cloudy skies, and shifting winds, rescheduling when weather threatened safety or obscured instruments.
“It’s been inspiring to see how everybody worked together,” said Lesley Ott, a NASA meteorologist. “By collecting data together, we can give a more complete understanding that meets the needs of different stakeholders.”
What does NASA’s MAGEQ project aim to discover?
MAGEQ is designed to reveal how gases move between land, air, and atmosphere, and what that means for both climate and public health. By combining multiple aircraft with satellite data, the project seeks to answer critical questions about how emissions from cities, farms, wetlands, and energy facilities interact and evolve.
The research is more than an academic exercise. State managers in Virginia and North Carolina will use the data to monitor wetlands, which provide natural storm protection, carbon absorption, and biodiversity support. Energy companies could benefit too, using MAGEQ data to spot methane leaks sooner, reduce waste, and cut harmful emissions.
Stakeholders helped steer the campaign from the outset, identifying key sites and ensuring results would have real-world applications for decision-makers.
The flights also act as a check on satellite monitoring. NASA’s TEMPO instrument and commercial satellites already track pollution from orbit, but MAGEQ allows scientists to validate those readings with airborne measurements. The data will also feed into NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS), which integrates global climate information from land, sea, and sky.
What comes next for MAGEQ?
With six aircraft flying more than 400 hours in six weeks, the campaign generated vast data streams. Each platform captured a different piece of the puzzle – from low-level fluxes to high-altitude mapping – that will now be combined into one picture.
“Every aircraft does something different and contributes a different type of data,” said Steve Brown of NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory. “We’ll have a lot of work to do to put all these data sets together, but we will make the best use of all these measurements.”
MAGEQ is part of NASA’s wider Earth science programme, which relies on coordination between satellites, aircraft, and researchers worldwide. Together, they are creating a clearer picture of how air quality and climate affect ecosystems, agriculture, and human health – and how future policy can respond.
