Airborne Lightning Observatory for FEGS and TGFs (ALOFT)

The ALOFT campaign is a unique suborbital
campaign to advance the science of highenergy radiation emissions from
thunderstorms, validate existing spaceborne
lightning mappers and evaluate design
concepts for next-generation mappers, and
study convection from a suborbital platform.
ALOFT is a collaboration between NASA, the
University of Bergen, and other institutions
that will fly the ER-2 aircraft over tropical
thunderstorms around the Gulf of Mexico,
Central America, and the Caribbean. The
payload will consist of lightning detectors,
gamma-ray scintillators, and a mixture of
passive and/or active microwave sensors.
Supporting the flights will be a diverse groundbased network of lightning instruments spread
across the region of interest.