NASA to Conduct Low-Altitude Flights Over Texas Farmland

What this means

NASA plans research flights near Transit, Texas, from October 22 through November 9, 2026, to measure farm emissions and their interaction with the atmosphere. A Dynamic Aviation A200 carrying more than a dozen sensors will collect data on methane, ammonia, ozone and particles around livestock and crop operations. The FarmFlux project involves NASA’s Goddard center, Colorado State University and Boston University; further flights over Midwestern and California cropland are scheduled for March through July 2027. These are research plans, not findings about local air quality.

Official release

Source material from NASA. The wording below is the issuer’s statement.

A NASA Dynamic Aviation A200 aircraft will conduct low-flying research flights over farmland near Transit, Texas, from Thursday, Oct. 22, through Monday, Nov. 9. These flights will measure gaseous and particulate emissions from animal feeding operations.

A photo of the Dynamic Aviation A200 aircraft, which will conduct low-flying research flights over farmland near Transit, Texas, to measure emissions in October and November 2026.

Dynamic Aviation

Agricultural emissions represent an important and understudied part of Earth’s land and atmosphere systems. The FarmFlux mission will deploy more than a dozen sensors to measure ozone, methane, ammonia, particulates, and other pollutants rising from crop lands and livestock farms and their interaction with the Earth’s atmosphere. The mission is jointly led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Colorado State University; and Boston University.

Additional low-altitude research flights with a NASA P-3 Orion aircraft are scheduled for the March to July 2027 growing season in the Midwest and California’s Central Valley with a focus on cropland.

For more information about the FarmFlux mission, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/evs-4/farm-flux/

By Sharon Teitelbaum

NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley

Release text attributed to NASA. Consult the official publication for any subsequent corrections or updates.